


I Called You Sweetheart

by rockstarpeach



Series: The First Time 'Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 01:31:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/555403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockstarpeach/pseuds/rockstarpeach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen and Misha were high school sweethearts, now they’re college sweethearts and they’re well on their way to being sweethearts through finishing grad school, to joining the workforce, to becoming little old men, screaming at kids to get off their lawn. A few weeks ago, though, Jensen messed up. Big time. He let flattery and curiosity and base desire get the better of him and he crossed a line. He cheated.<br/>Now he has to deal with the repercussions of what he’s done, and the possibility that Misha might not be as able to forgive him as he’d hoped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Called You Sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to two other fics, 'The First Time', in which Jensen and Misha meet and fall in love, and 'Another Thing To Fall', in which Jensen's relationship with Misha is tested when he meets Jared.

***

Jensen bites his lip and stirs the pot of bubbling, red sauce one last time. He sighs as he closes his eyes briefly, then puts the wooden spoon down on the counter and turns the dial until it clicks, to stop the heat. He should probably put a lid on it, but he doesn’t want to deal with the mess in the cupboard to find one. At this point, he doesn’t care that much.

Misha’s not home yet.

He’s an hour later than he said he’d be and the candle on the table is half-way melted and the bottle of wine Jensen had opened at six-thirty is two-thirds finished and the homemade marinara sauce that Jensen has been working on since two o’clock in the afternoon is simmering it’s way to burnt and Misha’s not home yet.

Jensen had packed in his work early this afternoon, even though he knows professor Morgan wants this month’s research notes on his desk by the end of the week and Jensen’s nowhere near finished. His thesis advisor is amazing at what he does, and he’s a pretty cool guy on top of that, but he can be a son of a bitch when he thinks Jensen’s starting to slack off. He makes a note to go into the office early tomorrow, to make up for it.

He got his buddy Ken to cover the office hours he was ditching, but he had to promise that he’d grade Ken’s entire section for him on the _intro to psych_ midterm exam in two weeks. Jensen got the shit end of that deal, for sure, but that’s okay. It was worth it, for tonight. Well, it was _supposed_ to be worth it, anyway.

He’d asked Misha, cleared it with him ahead of time over Pop Tarts Monday morning and told him he had something special planned; not for any reason, just because. Because Jensen does that kind of thing for Misha. He always has, but neither of them could deny there was more weight to the simple request this time, something heavy and wordless pressing down on them. And Misha said yes, said he’d be there, just like the last two times. Didn’t quite meet Jensen’s eyes and didn’t quite smile and said he’d be there.

It’s eight o’clock now and Misha’s not home yet.

Jensen honestly can’t decide whether Misha’s doing it on purpose or not. This quiet, passive-aggressive revenge isn’t Misha’s style at all; he’s usually pretty straightforward about what he wants, what he’s feeling, but Jensen can’t help but feel that he’s being punished. The bitch of it is, he can’t even be angry, not really.

Well, okay, he _can_ , technically. He even is, a little. But he knows he deserves it, so he’ll never say so.

Not even when nine o’clock comes and goes and Jensen finishes off the wine and cooks enough pasta for just himself, not when the clock strikes ten and the candle wax has melted over the scratched wood of the kitchen table and the flame has gone out. Not when the lights are off and the stove has cooled and Jensen is curled up alone on the couch watching _Ace Ventura_.

And Jensen _hates_ that movie, only picked it out tonight because it’s one of Misha’s favourites.

Jensen doesn’t even say a word when Misha comes in sometime after midnight, closing the door quietly behind him, like he’s hoping not to disturb Jensen. Like he’s hoping Jensen is already asleep.

“Oh,” Misha says when he walks through the living room on his way to the bedroom. He doesn’t look disappointed, which Jensen supposes is something, just surprised. “You’re still up.”

“Yeah,” Jensen says, sitting up a little, fighting back a yawn. “Leftovers in the fridge, if you want.”

He doesn’t ask where Misha was and Misha doesn’t offer an explanation.

“I’m alright,” Misha says with a quick shake of his head. “Thanks. I’m just gonna head to bed.”

“Yeah,” Jensen answers, holds his breath like he wants to say more, but he honestly doesn’t know what. They should talk. Hell, they _need_ to talk, whether they want to or not because when Misha told Jensen that they’d work things through, he clearly had a longer timeframe in mind than Jensen did. And that’s fine, it is, but Jensen’s ready to at least get started, here. He can’t do it alone, though. “Okay.”

Misha nods and turns, walks down the hall and disappears into the bathroom. Jensen considers following for all of a second, but quickly decides against it.

Misha clearly needs more time. It’s only been a few weeks, after all.

Three weeks since Jensen fucked up in a spectacular way. 22 days since a cocky freshman with too much charm for his own good managed to fuck with Jensen’s head enough that he thought cheating on his boyfriend of _eight fucking years_ , not to mention taking advantage of one of his students, was in any way a good idea.

Five hundred and thirty-two hours since Jensen risked everything good in his life for five damn minutes of ego-boosting head.

Three weeks since he swore to do whatever it takes to earn back Misha’s trust.

He listens to the water run in the bathroom, listens the toilet flush and the door open and he hears the bedroom floor squeak as Misha walks to the bed.

He closes his eyes and pictures his boyfriend stripping out of his clothes, leaving them in a crumpled up pile on the floor as he climbs under the covers. He thinks about being there next to him, curling his arms around Misha and holding him close, telling him he loves him and begging forgiveness, again.

Jensen can’t handle any more rejection tonight though, so he just closes his eyes and grips the couch cushion in his hands, until he falls into a restless sleep.

***

Things aren’t great.

Actually, that’s an understatement. ‘Not great’ was that time Misha was pissed off at him for painting the bedroom green instead of blue and he withheld his culinary skills in retaliation, so Jensen had to live off Hungry Man dinners for two weeks. Or the month after they had their first argument when Misha was away at college and Jensen couldn’t even apologise properly because he was stuck back in high school, hundreds of miles away.

‘Not great’ was a few weeks last year when the sex just got _incredibly_ bad for some unknown reason, right around the time Misha’s cousin got married. ‘Not great’ was the summer before Misha started grad school and couldn’t find a job and they had to get by on Jensen’s minimum wage at the school library.

‘Not great’, Jensen can handle.

But this? What’s going on right now? Is a hell of a lot worse than ‘not great’.

They’re four weeks in, now, ‘the fourth week of penance’, Jensen calls it in his head, sing-song melody accompanying the words and driving the guilt in deeper. He’d never imagined this for them, not even for a second.

They’re _Jensen and Misha_ , they’ve been sickeningly perfect since Jensen was in tenth grade and they should have stayed that way, forever. Jensen’s got it all planned out, has for years now. Jensen proposes – the 126th time – and Misha says yes and they buy a house and get a dog and grow old together and kiss each other goodnight, _every_ night, for the rest of their lives.

He’s never imagined a different future for them, not once.

Never imagined his eye wandering. Never imagined following through on it, never imagined getting a blow job from a student in his office while Misha was waiting for him in their bed, blissfully unaware. Never thought he’d stray, after he’d found the love of his life.

Never thought Misha would forgive him for it.

But he did. Said he did, anyway. Told Jensen he wanted to try. Try to forgive him and try to start over and he promised love and second chances and he promised to make Jensen earn them both. And Jensen intends to, still, no matter what it takes.

So yeah, Jensen’s willing to do his time. He’s the one that fucked up here, he’s the one that betrayed Misha’s trust and it’s his responsibility to get it back. Despite his incredibly poor judgement, he’s committed. Committed to Misha, to loving him for the rest of his life, to being his partner.

It’s a commitment that Misha shared once. Will again. Jensen won’t let them end up any other way.

***

Misha left him, for three days. Hardest three days of Jensen’s life, and when he finally walked through the door, told Jensen they’d be okay, Jensen was scared it was too good to be true.

For the first week or so after Misha came home, to their tiny one-bedroom, just a step above student housing, he slept on the couch. On the sixth night Jensen offered to take the couch instead (this whole thing is his fault after all) but Misha told him not to be ridiculous and finally came to bed, with Jensen.

He kept to his own side that night. He has every night since and Jensen’s careful not to touch him, even though he wants nothing more. Misha is right there, lying next to him, all sleep-tousled and gorgeous and Jensen’s heart aches from want but he can’t do anything about it. Can’t do anything but his best to give Misha the space he needs.

And he tries to. Damn, he tries, but even Jensen has his limits and with Misha dressed up in a tight t-shirt and a pair of jeans that hug his curves in a way designed to drive people crazy, it’s no wonder that Jensen reacts. It’s not his fault. Five weeks of tension and quiet and unrequited need are driving Jensen slowly crazy so really, it’s not his fault when he pushes, just a little.

“Where are you going?” he asks when Misha comes out of the bedroom, late in the afternoon and heads straight for the front door. He looks so good Jensen nearly chokes on his tongue, too good for any sort of occasion that doesn’t start and end with sexual impression, but Jensen deserves that.

“Out,” Misha says. “Justin is having some people over and I thought I’d drop by.”

“Don’t,” Jensen tells him, a plea, an order, a hope. He hates how desperate he sounds, but he supposes Misha deserves to hear it. He _is_ desperate, after all. “Stay home tonight. I miss you.”

It’s a few seconds before Misha responds. They’re strained and tense and Jensen thinks for a moment that Misha will do as he asks, that he’ll stay home and they’ll talk and they’ll cry and they’ll kiss and make up and fuck each other to sleep.

“I won’t be late,” is what Misha says, choked out words breaking off Jensen’s fantasy. “I promised I’d… I won’t be late.”

“Yeah, that’s…” Jensen tells him, frowns and just barely stops himself from reaching out to grab hold of Misha, to curl his fingers around Misha’s wrists and pull him close, keep him in the apartment forever. It’s an effort, goes against his every instinct, staying away like this. Every single fibre of his being is telling him to hold Misha, to touch, kiss, hold his hand and take him in his arms.

It’s been so easy for so long, the casual way they slide together, morning kisses and thighs brushing while they eat and legs entangled while they sleep. It’s second nature and to _not_ have that – it’s startling, abrupt and it hits him, hard.

“Have fun. Really, have fun. I’ll be here.”

Misha opens his mouth, sucks down a large gulp of air and frowns. Jensen watches his hand open and close, twitch at his side and Jensen knows he’s fighting the urge to reach forward, to grab hold just like Jensen is. 

“I know this is hard on you, Jensen,” Misha tells him. “It’s not any easier on me. And I’m not trying to punish you, I just… need time.”

Misha doesn’t look back when he steps out into the hallway, closing the door behind him.

***

Three days later, a Saturday with the pressure of parties and papers due and assignments to grade, is the first day that Jensen actually convinces Misha to stay put.

“Please,” he says, tugs at Misha’s hand as he walks past where Jensen is sitting on the couch. Misha pauses, looks down at him and Jensen squeezes his hand a little tighter.

“I know I… Just give me a chance. Please.”

There’s a terse second when Jensen thinks Misha is just going to continue on to the kitchen, but in the end, he gives in to Jensen’s gentle tug. He doesn’t let go of Jensen’s hand when he sits down next to him, smiles a crooked smile and threads their fingers together, palms pressed tight..

“You’re not the only one with work to do, you know,” Misha says, but his voice is soft, without much actual protest. “I have a class that wants to know whether or not they’re likely to fail the first semester, too.”

And arguably a more important class. Misha grades papers for a graduate level sociology class, something he’ll probably do even after he has the doctorate he’s scheduled to receive next year. He honestly loves it, unlike Jensen, who only works as a teaching assistant because they couldn’t afford to survive without the pay.

“If you really need to go…”

“No,” Misha shakes his head, surprising Jensen. “No, I’ll stay. I want to.”

Jensen smiles as he calls for pizza (mushroom and black olive – Misha’s favourite) and two hours later the pizza is finished and so is _Temple of Doom_ and Misha is sitting close enough on the couch that Jensen has his arm wrapped comfortably around his shoulders.

Misha’s stiff under his embrace. Jensen’s stiff too (and not in the good way) and as the credits roll Jensen sucks in a fortifying breath, reaches his free hand up to cup Misha’s jaw. Misha twists slightly towards him, curls his mouth up at the corner and he’s pliant, seemingly willing under Jensen when Jensen presses their mouths together.

Pliant isn’t exactly what Jensen is going for, but when he presses, opens his mouth and encourages Misha to do the same, Misha goes along. He does what he’s told, he does what Jensen wants but he doesn’t do anything else. Doesn’t do that thing with his tongue that always drives Jensen crazy and his fingers don’t clench tight around Jensen’s arms. He doesn’t pull Jensen down on top of him and he doesn’t grab hold and not let go.

He’s willing. Perfectly willing to do whatever it is Jensen desires but he's not making any demands of his own. And Misha? Misha _always_ makes demands.

When Jensen angles them, lowers Misha so that he’s flat on his back with Jensen over top of him and Jensen’s hand down his pants, Misha just spreads his legs, invites Jensen in further.

Which ordinarily would get Jensen rock hard, turn his knees to jelly and set his hips in a mindless, needy rhythm. Ordinarily Misha would smirk up at him and dare him to go further, press harder. Ordinarily Misha would go lax with the anticipation of pleasure and coax Jensen into losing any and all ability for higher brain function.

But now…

Now Misha doesn’t even meet his eyes, just lets himself be positioned and handled, doesn’t complain when Jensen strips off his shirt but doesn’t help either and when Jensen’s got both their pants halfway over their hips, with no help from his boyfriend, he stops.

“I’m sorry,” he says, for what’s probably the hundredth time. He tucks them both back in when he realises Misha’s not even hard and he presses four desperate kisses to Misha’s jaw. “I’m so sorry.”

“I know,” Misha tells him. He gives him a hollow smile when they both sit up straight and they wait for the DVD to loop back around to the menu screen before Misha follows Jensen into the bedroom and they fall asleep on their own sides of the bed.

Funny, Jensen wasn’t even sure until all this started that they actually _had_ sides.

***

Three days later Misha does make it home in time for dinner.

Jensen reheats the chilli that Misha cooked yesterday and they smile at each other awkwardly over the table and Jensen refills Misha’s wine glass and Misha wipes a dab of red sauce from the corner of Jensen’s mouth with his thumb.

And when Jensen leans in, when he catches Misha’s thumb between his teeth and when he chases the soft pad with his tongue, when he leans in and presses his lips to Misha’s lips… Misha pulls back. He looks at Jensen with watery eyes, on the verge of something – tears, speech, Jensen’s not quite sure because he never makes it there – and he picks up their empty dinner plates, brings them into the kitchen.

He dumps them into the sink and Jensen steps up behind him, wraps his arms around Misha’s shoulders and kisses the side of Misha’s neck until he relaxes, until he falls back into Jensen’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” Jensen whispers. “Misha…”

Misha places his hands over Jensen’s around his waist and again, he follows Jensen into their bed. Again, they sleep stiffly, uneasily, careful not to get too close.

***

After that Misha is… not better, just maybe more receptive.

Like he’s making an effort as well, which Jensen appreciates, he really, really does. Especially considering Jensen is the one with something to prove here. But his attentiveness, his affection, the way he does the laundry and the dishes and the grocery shopping and goes out of his way to accommodate Misha’s schedule and his taste in television and his boundaries… That can only go so far if Misha’s not around to appreciate it. To see that Jensen loves him still, always.

Misha eats with Jensen more often than not, now. He watches television with Jensen, opens up for Jensen when his hands wander and his lips go soft and easy under Jensen’s, every time. He stays home when Jensen asks, says ‘that sounds nice’ like he means it and then he curls up in bed, turns his back to Jensen and lets him touch how he pleases, doesn’t react but for the occasional perfunctory gasp.

Jensen doesn’t want to touch, not really, not like this, but he does it anyway. It’s not like he thinks he can fuck Misha back into loving him like he used to, but he’s desperate enough to try anything. If they’re physically intimate, maybe the emotional will follow. 

When it’s dark and quiet and Jensen officially gives up on taking things any further than some light groping, he holds Misha’s face in his palm and he presses his forehead to Misha’s. It’s always a few seconds before Misha leans forward and kisses him. 

Misha still won’t let Jensen hold him while they sleep.

***

Jensen’s late on Wednesday. 

He has class until three in the afternoon and he’s got office hours until 5:30 and the bus ride is only about fifteen minutes, so he’s usually home by six. He has to stay late today though. He has a few students in his office who need some direction on their group term project and it’s not until Jensen’s stomach starts to rumble that he looks at the clock and realises it’s nearly seven.

He politely ushers the students out of his office, tells them to come back on Friday if they need any more help, but before he can grab his bag and head out the door, Morgan comes in. He reminds Jensen that they needed to get the abstract finished for the paper they’re submitting for publication (Jensen’s not even done compiling the data yet, so Morgan is cracked if he thinks they’re going to publish before three or four months at the earliest) so they spend a while ‘discussing’ his progress.

He’s having a hard time really caring about the effects of extraneous visual input on ingrained muscle memory at the moment, so he has to admit he’s further behind than he’d like to be. Which means he’s going to be working late for a while.

Once that hell is over with he makes his way to the bus stop and runs into a friend of his along the way. Mike is hungry, it turns out, so they decide to head to the campus diner and grab some burgers. Milkshakes and fries and a salad (because Misha has this thing about eating enough veggies that Jensen has adopted, despite himself) but mostly burgers.

They’re good; the campus diner always has good food and Jensen and Mike take their time. Jensen doesn’t really have much to hurry home for, these days. He wipes the grease from his chin and washes down a mouthful of lettuce with some chocolaty goodness and he listens to Mike tell him all about the date he went on last weekend and how hot the girl was.

He goes into a little too much detail, but Jensen lives secretly, vicariously, and doesn’t mention his own problems in the romance department. He’s hoping he won’t ever have to. It’s none of anyone’s business. Besides, it’s a non-issue, given that everything will be okay again in no time.

He finally gets home at around half past ten and Misha is sitting on the living room couch, reading.

“Hey,” he says, after he’s toed off his shoes and made his way down the hall, dropping his school bag next to the couch.

“Hey,” Misha says back, looking up at him and closing his bookmark between two pages, to hold his place. “You’re late.”

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees. “Long day, man. I’m beat.”

“I expected you earlier. You could have called.”

Jensen frowns, furrows his brow at his boyfriend and then turns his head to the side to look into the kitchen, half expecting to see the remnants of an over-cooked roast and a romantic table setting for two. All he sees is two empty beer bottles on the counter and a single plate in the sink, probably from Misha heating up some of the lasagne left over from a few days ago.

“I… could have,” he agrees, still confused. But he didn’t even think of it. He’s _never_ thought of it, really. Neither has Misha, when he’s late. It’s just not something they do. They come and go as they please, unless they have specific plans. Sure, if he was planning on taking off for a few days to hit up Vegas with his buddies he’d let Misha know so he didn’t worry (and after Misha’s impromptu trip to New Orleans a couple years back to help rebuild, Misha knows to return the favour).

So the look he’s currently getting makes no sense. The air of false aloofness, disappointment and… Oh, right. Suspicion. Now he gets it. It grates. He deserves it, he knows, but it grates.

Things are different now. A few weeks ago Jensen could have stayed out all night, come home in the morning in wrinkled clothes, smelling of booze and sweat. Misha would have smiled, teased him that he’d thought Jensen was a good boy and then fucked him so hard he had trouble getting out of bed the rest of the day.

But that was a few weeks ago. Back before… before Jensen cheated. It sucks to even think the words, but that’s what happened and he has to own up to it. And in light of that, of the fact that Misha is the awesomest boyfriend in the history of ever and didn’t dump his ass on the spot, Jensen needs to take his lumps.

He needs to be better. Twice as good as before. Needs to be thoughtful and considerate and let Misha know when he’s even going to be a minute later than usual. Needs to call him all the time so Misha knows where he is and what he’s doing and knows that what he’s _not_ doing is a cute freshman with a shy smile and perfect hands. Misha used to trust him, but Jensen has shown them both that that’s not the case anymore.

He’d been stupid to think that Misha would get over it, just like that. 

“Sorry,” he says, trying for a smile. He sits down on the couch, puts more than a foot of space between himself and Misha. “You’re right, sorry. I got stuck late at work. Office hours ran long…”

“I’ll bet,” Misha mumbles and Jensen’s mouth snaps shut, the rest of his explanation cut short.

“Misha,” he says instead. “That’s not…” Not what happened, not this time. He hasn’t seen Jared since the party at Justin’s last month, since Misha found out what happened between them and Jared followed through on his plan to switch into a different tutorial section, so Jensen wasn’t his TA anymore.

Misha just raises his eyebrows, stares Jensen down until Jensen hunches over and his knees become incredibly fascinating. Fuck, he’s good at that.

“I had to work late,” he says, looking up again after several seconds of silence. “Then I grabbed some supper with Mike. Then I came home. I’ll call next time. I promise.”

“No,” Misha says, shaking his head and then ducking it with a self-deprecating smirk. “No, I’m sorry. You don’t need to answer to me. I should never have said that. You’re free to do as you like.”

“ _Misha_ ,” Jensen pleads, reaching across the space between them to grab one of Misha’s hands between both of his own. “If that’s what you need from me, I’ll give it. I’ll call you every five minutes if it’ll help. Just tell me what I have to do to get you trust me again. Because if you can’t, then we’re just kidding ourselves that we’re gonna be okay.”

“Maybe we are kidding ourselves,” Misha says.

He’s up and off the couch in a heartbeat, down the hall and into the bedroom while Jensen’s mouth hangs open, the ‘no’ he’s sure he should have answered, dried and dead on his lips.

***

Friday evening, Jensen beats Misha home with time to spare. He’s not a good cook, never pretended to be, so he stops by the deli on the corner and picks them up some sandwiches, a nice bottle of wine, a dozen of Misha’s favourite caramel toffee cookies and as the cashier is ringing him up, he grabs a bouquet of roses from the stand next to him.

Misha eats his sandwich, follows it up with two of the cookies and two glasses of wine and he smiles at Jensen, tells him ‘thank you’ when Jensen hands him the flowers.

He lets Jensen rub up against him later that night in their bed, body stiff in Jensen’s arms until Jensen gives up, presses a lingering kiss to Misha’s temple and rolls back to his own side.

***

Jensen’s not sure what it is that wakes him up. 

A quick glance at the clock tells him that it’s half past four in the morning, but he immediately knows that Misha’s not asleep, either. His breathing is a little too shallow, too rapid. He’s curled in on himself, facing away from Jensen and his shoulders are too high, trembling slightly, his fist curled tightly in the loose material of his pillow case. 

“Misha?” Jensen whispers, his voice rough and scratchy from sleep. He puts a tentative hand on Misha’s hip and Misha flinches, sucks in a sharp breath and goes still. “Hey, you okay?”

Jensen doesn’t know what he was expecting, but when Misha rolls over onto his back and turns his head in Jensen’s direction, Jensen can see through the dim light filtering in through their curtains from the street that Misha’s face is carefully blank. His breathing has slowed, his body is still. Jensen thinks that his eyes might be a little bloodshot and the skin on his cheeks seems a little patchier than normal, but he can’t be sure.

“Why did you do it?”

Misha’s voice is sudden and clear, steady. Jensen clears his throat, mostly to buy himself some time, because he truly doesn’t know how to answer that. To be honest, he’s sort of been going out of his way to _not_ think about it.

“Don’t just tell me you’re sorry,” Misha says and okay, there goes Jensen’s go to, when he has no idea what to say. “I know that already. I need to know why you did it. I need to know what you were thinking, what went wrong between us that you thought it was a good idea. I need to know if…”

If it will happen again. Misha doesn’t need to say it out loud; Jensen knows what he means.

“I didn’t…” Jensen starts, takes a breath and licks his lips. “It wasn’t a good idea. I never thought it was and I… I didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“Your pants accidentally fell off?” Misha asks, and even though his face is still eerily blank, there’s the slightest teasing lilt in his tone.

Jensen huffs a puff of air out through his nose and sits up a little straighter. Sleep is still curling around the edges of his mind, making things a little foggy and this isn’t a conversation he wants to have even when he’s at his best.

“He asked me out,” Jensen confesses, then immediately rushes to add, “I said no. I mean I wasn’t… It was only that once, and I swear I didn’t plan it. But he asked me out. A lot.”

“You mentioned he had a crush on you,” Misha says softly. “And I could tell that you liked him, too, but I thought… it was harmless.”

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees and swallows around a lump in his throat. “I did, too. It was _supposed_ to be. But then… Shit, Misha, I don’t even know. He didn’t know about you. I didn’t tell him I had a boyfriend. I guess I liked the attention, or… I don’t know. It’s been you. It’s always been you and _only_ you and I _like_ that. I didn’t ever want that to change, not really, but...”

“But what?” Misha prompts. “Am I not what you want anymore?”

He doesn’t sound angry, just sad and Jensen feels that pain like it’s his own.

“No,” he says, short and biting, almost a growl because _no_. “Don’t think that. Please, don’t think that. I was… flattered. I guess, I mean yeah, I was a little curious about… You’re the only person I’ve ever been with and sometimes I wonder… But I swear, I was never going to let it get as far as it did.”

Only now, he’s second guessing himself. Because he had plenty of time to tell Jared that he was spoken for, plenty of opportunity to make sure Jared knew he was off-limits. Sure, he told Jared no, plenty of times, told him to give it up, it wasn’t going to happen. But on some level, when Jensen met with him late at night, alone in his office, he knew where things were headed.

“Or hell,” he decides to admit, because even if he doesn’t want to say it out loud, Misha deserves complete honesty. “Maybe I knew it all along and just didn’t want to think it was true. But it was a mistake. I know I should have handled the whole situation differently. Because you _are_ what I want. You’re _exactly_ what I want and it was just some sort of… temporary insanity, or something.”

Misha is quiet, doesn’t say anything for so long that Jensen just keeps on talking, to fill the silence.

“I told him I wasn’t interested. I must have told him a dozen times, but I guess he could tell I enjoyed the flirting or something, because he just blew it off, didn’t believe me. Thought I was playing hard to get. And then that night, he was flirting a little more, coming on a little stronger and I just… I just let him. I know I should have stopped him, but…”

 _I’m sorry_ is on the tip of his tongue, but he bites it back. Misha doesn’t want to hear that right now.

It’s another tense few moments before Misha says “okay,” and turns his back to Jensen, adjusting the blanket around his waist.

“Wait,” Jensen says. “What? Okay?”

Misha sighs and twists so that he can look at Jensen again, but by his posture it’s pretty clear he thinks the conversation is over.

“Thank you, Jensen,” he says. “For telling me that. But I’m not sure what to say, what to think right now. So… goodnight.”

“I…” Jensen starts, but really, he doesn’t have much of a choice here. “Yeah. Night.”

Misha nods and rolls back over and Jensen spends the next three hours staring at the ceiling.

***

On Thursday Jensen asks Misha to go out with him, dinner and a movie, like they haven’t done in months. 

Misha looks at him a little funny, but he agrees.

He opens his mouth as if to argue when Jensen suggests he pick the movie. Jensen never does that, mostly because Jensen hasn’t liked a movie since _Lord of the Rings_ and he always wants to go to the theatre that only screens classics. Hell, they usually spend more time fighting over what movie to see than they do actually watching whatever movie it is they finally decide on. Not this time, though, but that appears to be Jensen’s second mistake.

His first is that Jensen doesn’t ask Misha where he wants to eat, just drives to his favourite pizza place, even though the crust is too thick and it drives Jensen crazy.

“We could have gone to Lee Ho Fook’s,” Misha tells him. It’s pretty much Jensen’s favourite place to eat out, but it’s not often he gets the chance. Too much MSG, Misha always tells him. “You don’t have to treat me like a child.”

Jensen frowns at that but doesn’t engage. He’s pretty sure that no matter what he says, it’s going to be the wrong thing. Shit, he just wishes he didn’t have to care, wishes their entire relationship wasn’t under this fucked up microscope.

“Extra large with mushroom and black olive?” Jensen asks, raising his hand to signal their waiter.

Misha doesn’t answer, but he eats more than half and he chooses the movie and lets Jensen suck him off, when they’re under the covers with the lights out.

***

Saturday and Tuesday and Wednesday, Misha doesn’t come home.

He tells Jensen about it, says he’s staying with Justin because it’s closer to campus or they were hanging out and time got away from them or he’s too lazy to make the trip. Jensen smiles a strained smile into the phone and says it’s fine even though it’s not.

***

On Monday they play Scrabble.

Jensen wins.

***

Jensen steps out of the bathroom, wet and nearly naked on Friday. He’s got a towel wrapped around his waist after his shower and he’s rubbing a smaller towel – the one with the picture of Elvis on it that Misha gave him for Christmas last year – through the wet spikes of hair on his head. He doesn’t have his glasses on or his contacts in, watches the world all hazy and soft around the edges, so when he steps into the bedroom, sees Misha laid out, naked and face down on top of the blankets, he thinks for a second he’s imagining it. 

“Misha?” he asks quietly, after his first two attempts at speech fail, abysmally.

Misha cranes his neck, tilts his head to look at Jensen. He smiles a little, not false, not forced but not right, either. It’s too tight, too high, his eyes too sloped. He pushes up onto one elbow, bends one knee and slides it up the bed slightly, spreading his legs. 

He licks his lips. It’s not sexy or flirtatious, just an unconscious motion. The dry, cracked skin needs moisture and his nerves are working overtime and he shimmies a little, gets comfortable and then pointedly raises one eyebrow.

Two months ago, Jensen would be so far inside by now that Misha would be able to taste him. But it’s not two months ago and Jensen doesn’t really know what this means.

“Well?” Misha prompts, when Jensen just stands there, Elvis towel held limply in his right hand. “If you don’t want to fuck, that’s fine. I have some reading I need to catch up on. I mean, it’s a little embarrassing, what with me throwing myself at you like this, but it’s fine.”

Misha’s lips are turning up at the corner, playing it off as a joke but his eyes are flat and his voice wavers. His hands are curled tight around the pillow under his head and the muscles in his legs are taut, like he’s ready to flee. He’s shutting down, shutting Jensen out and Jensen wants to stop it, he _needs_ to stop it, before it’s too late. This is the first advance Misha has made on him since things went bad and Jensen’s not about to waste it, no matter that it feels too fast, no matter that Misha looks like he might bolt if Jensen so much as touches him.

It’s his chance, maybe his _only_ chance to show Misha that they’re not as broken as he thinks they are. Show Misha that they’re still good together, that Jensen still loves him, that he’ll _always_ love him and that they can fix this, get them back to _them_.

Misha’s always responded pretty well to the more physical methods of communication. 

“It’s been a while. Maybe you should buy me dinner first,” Jensen jokes. He needs to lighten the mood, because holy shit he doesn’t want to fuck this up. And really, there’s a pretty high chance of that, given his track record as of late. Plus, you know. It _has_ been a while. He’s almost worried he won’t be good at it anymore.

Misha doesn’t say anything for a long time. Well, it’s probably only about ten seconds but it feels a hell of a lot longer than that to Jensen. Jensen’s tentative smile fades and he shifts awkwardly from one foot to another. It’s cold in the room, he suddenly realises and he shivers, feels the chill acutely where the tiny beads of water are still clinging to his skin.

“Um…” he says, thinks maybe this isn’t such a good idea after all. He’s about to reach out to the dresser at his right to grab whatever clothes he can find and retreat to the bathroom to get dressed, but then Misha’s body relaxes all at once.

He seems to almost visibly deflate, all the vibrancy and life that Jensen’s used to so far gone now that he’s not even pretending anymore.

Misha lowers his eyes for barely a second before he looks right at Jensen and whispers, “I miss you.”

Jensen opens his mouth to answer, to tell Misha he misses him too, that he loves him, that he’s sorry, but the words catch in his throat when his eyes start to water, so instead he just lets out a choked off gasp. His heart is pounding and his fingers shake when he drops one towel to the floor and then the second. His steps are slow and unsteady as Misha watches him cross to the bed and Misha jolts under his touch when he stretches out next to him with a hand on his lower back.

“Sorry,” Jensen whispers, letting his eyes fall shut. He doesn’t move his hand though and after only a moment Misha sighs deeply and relaxes under his touch. “Roll over,” he says, sliding his hand to Misha’s hip and tugging slightly. He wants to look Misha in the eye for this, wants to see him smile, bite his lip. He wants to watch Misha come apart for him and he wants to put him back together with pieces of Jensen inside, so he’ll always be there.

But, Misha doesn’t roll. Instead he shakes his head once, lifts his bent knee even higher and says, “like this,” as he rocks his ass sideways against Jensen’s groin.

 _No_ , Jensen thinks, _not like this at all_ , because like this Jensen can’t hold Misha’s face in his hand and he can’t suck at the hollow of Misha’s throat and he can’t feel Misha’s legs around his waist and arms around his ribs, holding him tight. And he can’t kiss him, all slow and sloppy and feel Misha gasp and moan into his mouth.

And those are some of Jensen’s very favourite things about sex.

“Yeah, okay,” is what he says, pressing a light kiss to the tip of Misha’s spine. He settles closer, rolls so that he’s half on top of him and slots one leg between Misha’s. He slips his hand forward then, curls it over the sharp jut of Misha’s hipbone and then down, rubs it gently over his thigh and then pauses.

With his other arm he props himself up to get some leverage and rocks slowly against Misha’s body, presses his dick to the soft flesh of Misha’s ass cheek. It’s not hard yet, he’s too nervous for that, but the contact is helping. 

“God, Misha,” he whispers against the warm skin of Misha’s neck, breathes into Misha’s ear in soft puffs as he moves his hips in slow circles. Misha sucks in a sharp breath when Jensen’s knee shifts up and presses into his balls, and he tilts his hips back to increase the pressure.

Jensen moves his hand then, from Misha’s thigh upward. His touch is light, his fingertips barely skimming across Misha’s skin, tickling the hair until they reach the base of Misha’s cock. He’s hard already, which is a good sign. Jensen curls a fist around him and closes his teeth down gently over Misha’s shoulder as he starts to jack him up and down, just a little pressure from both his teeth and his fingers.

He loosens his grip on the down stroke, knuckles brushing Misha’s sac. He tightens them again on the way up, squeezing just under the crown to coax out enough pre-come to make the glide a little easier. Misha is warm under him, breathing heavy and deep. Jensen’s hard now, too, but he almost doesn’t care about that.

Misha feels so good in his hand, so good in his arms that he sort of wants to finish him off just like this. Curl up around him when it’s over and not let go.

But Misha reaches down and grabs his wrist, pulls him away and presses two small packets into his hand.

“Do it,” he says, drawing himself up onto his hands and knees.

Jensen is too stunned by what he’s holding to comment on the fact that he doesn’t want to just ‘do it’. He wants to take his time and do it _right_ , but he’s holding a fucking _condom_ and his brain is sort of short circuiting.

The thing is, Jensen is twenty-three years old and he’s never once used a condom in his life. Misha is the only person he’s ever been with, so they were never very worried about disease before.

The fact that Misha went out and bought some, that… Well, Jensen doesn’t even know what to think about that. It’s a good idea, he supposes. At least from Misha’s perspective, since Misha was pretty adamant about not wanting the details about what happened between Jensen and Jared. Which is good, because that would have been one hell of an awkward conversation.

The downside is, Misha doesn’t know that the chances of Jensen catching anything from that encounter are pretty damn slim. Still, it’s possible Jared has herpes or… syphilis or some shit that you can catch from someone’s mouth, so yeah, condoms are probably a solid idea for a while.

But Misha actually thought about this enough to go out and buy some protection and now Jensen is holding one of the things in his hand and he feels like the biggest asshole on the planet because they wouldn’t need one if he could just keep it in his pants. Misha would still be able to look him the eye when they fucked and he’d still randomly wake Jensen up with blow jobs and pancakes in the middle of the night, if Jensen had been stronger.

“Do you need help?” Misha asks and Jensen jerks his head up to see Misha looking back at him over his shoulder. It’s probably been a little too long that he’s just been staring down at the condom like a dumbass.

“I…” he starts. Misha doesn’t sound angry or condescending, just honestly curious, like maybe Jensen really _does_ need help. “No, I… No.”

He puts the lube down and tears open the wrapper, pulls the condom out delicately with his thumb and index finger. He might not have ever done this before, but he’s seen it happen, in school and in porn. Besides, it’s really pretty self-explanatory. 

It feels weird going on. Tight, but not necessarily in a good way. It’s not _bad_ , it’s just… different. He rolls it all the way down and once it’s on he can’t really feel it anymore, so he gives himself a few experimental tugs, just to see what it’s going to be like.

Misha kind of likes it, he told Jensen once. Misha has never used a condom either, out of necessity, but he got curious and bought a pack years ago, before they even started sleeping together and he used them to jerk off.

Misha looks away again once Jensen is ready and lowers himself to his elbows.

“Do it,” he says again.

This time Jensen reaches for the lube he just put down and _this_ is something he’s very familiar with. He flips the cap and coats his fingers easily, inches forward to press his hand to Misha’s ass, slippery fingers sliding in between his cheeks. He runs the tip of one around Misha’s hole, slowly pressing it in and his dick jumps when the tight ring of muscle flutters and twitches around him.

He lets out a low moan and bends slightly, cups his free hand around Misha’s ribs as he bends to press a kiss to Misha’s spine, works in a second finger. He pumps them in and out, in and out, twists them and kisses Misha again. He’s used a lot of lube, so Misha’s definitely slick enough but Jensen wants to go slow, work him open so good and long that Misha’s begging for it, by the end.

Misha starts to buck up against Jensen’s hand after a few minutes, impatient little jerks of his hips, so Jensen fucks him with his fingers a few more times and then slides them out. He grabs the lube and squeezes out some more into his palm, quickly works it over his shaft so that he’s ready and then reaches for Misha again. He smiles a little to himself as his fingers easily sink right back inside, and he starts to stretch him all over again.

Honestly, there are times when Jensen could do this for _hours_ , just play with Misha like this, tease him and keep them both on edge, but this isn’t one of those times. Misha doesn’t think so either.

“I’m ready,” he says, the words sharp and tight. “ _Do it_.”

He’s losing patience now, so Jensen cuts his exploration short and lines his dick up behind Misha, pushes in in one easy slide. It’s always so easy, between them, like their bodies were made for each other, like they know exactly what to do, even if their hearts don’t.

He shudders when he hits home, when his hips fit snug up against Misha and he leans down to wrap his arms further around Misha’s front. He moves slow, rocks his hips in shallow, rolling motions so he doesn’t have to pull away, so he can touch, press his lips to Misha’s skin and trace the lines of Misha’s ribs with his tongue.

“Harder,” Misha says and Jensen closes his eyes. Misha likes ‘harder’, Jensen knows that. He also likes ‘slower’ and ‘faster’ and ‘upside down’. Misha likes pretty much everything. Still, ‘harder’ isn’t really what Jensen wants to hear right now.

“In a minute,” Jensen says, and grips Misha’s cock in his slippery fist. He strokes him a few times, slow to match the rhythm of his hips, tries to hold Misha tight enough to him that they’ll be okay again. “Give me a minute.”

“I don’t want…” Misha says. He sounds choked and raw, like he’s on the verge of tears but he’s pissed as hell about it. “Jensen, just do it. I just need to fuck right now, okay? Please.”

And that’s not at all the kind of begging Jensen had in mind.

“Sure,” Jensen says quietly, then clears his throat. He kneels up straighter and the hand that’s not wrapped around Misha’s cock moves across his body to settle over his hip, curls over it to keep him in place. “Yeah, okay.”

He moves faster now, perfunctory almost, hand skimming up and down Misha’s erection with a monotonous _slap slap slap_ while Misha pushes back even harder to meet him. 

They’ve fucked slow before, hours just rocking against each other, taking breaks just to make out, still tangled together before pushing each other to the brink, only to stop again. They’ve fucked fast – twenty-five seconds is their record – frantic and desperate for each other with Jensen’s pants around his knees and his face pressed against the inside of their front door.

This is like neither of those. This is what Jensen used to imagine sex would be like with someone who isn’t Misha. It’s going through the motions and it’s feeling his fingers warm where Misha’s spunk coats them and it’s the tight feeling in his belly and the pleasant crash of orgasm, but Jensen feels sort of far away from it.

It’s… sad, almost.

The clean-up is easier with a condom, Jensen has to give them that. He ties it off and tosses it in the garbage bin, goes to the bathroom and brings back a cloth for Misha. Normally he’d wipe his boyfriend down afterwards, kiss along his hip and run the cloth slowly between his legs when Misha can’t be bothered to do it himself. Sex often has the side effect of turning Misha into a lazy princess and it’s a fact Jensen doesn’t mind as much as he sometimes pretends to. But this time Misha is already sitting at the edge of the bed with his feet on the floor and he holds out a hand for the cloth, so Jensen hands it over.

“Do um…” Jensen starts and he doesn’t know where to go from there, really. Post-sex conversation has never been awkward. Not even after their first time. This is new and it’s frustrating and it _sucks_. “I can make some toast, if you’re hungry?”

“I have class,” Misha says. It’s something he’s said a thousand times before but this time it sounds different. Jensen can’t really place why. “I’ll grab something on the way.”

“Okay,” Jensen says, as he watches Misha stand and start to wipe himself down. Misha tosses the cloth in the laundry pile when he’s done and then heads for the shower. He passes Jensen on the way and he leans in to kiss the corner of his mouth before he smiles softly and keeps going.

Jensen waits until Misha leaves the apartment ten minutes later and then he makes some toast for himself.

***

“Maybe you were right.”

It’s been two weeks since they had sex and they’ve barely even spoken since then, so Jensen can’t really imagine what it is he was right about. Maybe Misha finally thinks they should spring for that widescreen HD TV Jensen’s been telling him they need for years now, but Jensen kind of doubts it.

“About?” Jensen asks. His breath catches and his chest gets tight when Misha grabs the remote off the coffee table and hits pause, Paul Newman frozen with his yoyo raised high overhead, ready to swing. Whatever it is, it’s serious then, which at the moment can’t possibly be a good thing.

 _Cool Hand Luke_ has been one of Jensen’s favourite movies since he first watched it with Misha back in tenth grade, but he has a sinking feeling he won’t be able to watch it again, after tonight.

“About us,” Misha answers, putting the remote back down on the table. He sits back on the couch, settles in a little further from Jensen than he was before. “We’ve been together since we were kids and maybe you were right, maybe we just… got comfortable. Maybe we need some… I don’t know, space? Time? Something.”

“ _What_?” Jensen asks, because seriously, _what_? He’s pretty sure he’d remember saying something like that. Because that sounds pretty much exactly like a break-up speech, not that he’s had one directed at him before. Still. That’s what they sound like in books and movies and he’s _damn_ sure that he’d never in a million years suggest that he and Misha break up. Fuck.

“What you did…” Misha starts.

“What I did was wrong, Misha. A huge fucking mistake, that’s it. It wasn’t… I was wrong.”

Misha tilts his head a smiles a crooked smile.

“Maybe it was what you needed. Jensen…” he sighs and his voice is strained, like maybe this is as hard for Misha to say as it is for Jensen to hear. “I feel like maybe this was your way of telling me you need to see what else is out there. I feel like… Like I didn’t give you the chance to grow on your own. Like I wanted you and I won you and now I’m all you’ve ever known and maybe that’s the only reason you’re still with me.”

“No, that’s not…” Jensen starts, but Misha just talks right over him.

“And now I’m wondering if I didn’t give _me_ the chance to see who I would be, on my own. I think maybe we could both do with a break. A chance to breathe.”

Except Jensen _can’t_ breathe, suddenly. The prospect of not being with Misha, of not seeing him every day and coming home to him every night, of Misha out there, dating other people… It makes him sick, makes the air heavy and sticky and he has to fight to get it into his lungs. Being away from Misha won’t help him breathe at all. It will suffocate him.

“Misha, no. Don’t. _Please_ don’t. I love you.” He knows he sounds desperate, his voice cracked. His fingers are digging into his thighs so hard his knuckles turn white. He doesn’t care.

“I love you, too,” Misha tells him with a slight, sad smile. “But I think this will be good for us.”

“No. It…”

“Jensen,” Misha cuts him off again and Jensen’s mouth snaps shut. “This is what I need right now.”

It takes all the strength Jensen has in him, including some he didn’t even know about, not too keep arguing, not to tackle Misha and tie him up and make him stay. It’s what Misha needs. And Jensen can be one selfish son of a bitch on occasion, but he’s not lying when he tells Misha he loves him. 

And no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much Jensen _knows_ Misha is wrong, when Misha tells Jensen he needs something, Jensen will give it to him. His heart, his body, the right side of the bedroom closet and first choice in colours when they play _RISK_. He’ll give him anything, even this.

“I think you’re making a mistake,” Jensen tells him, because even though he’s lost, he can’t just keep his mouth shut. He’s not that graceful.

“Maybe,” Misha doesn’t quite agree. “But I owe it to myself to find out.”

And Jensen… Jensen can’t disagree with that, much as he wants to. He doesn’t say anything, stays quiet for long enough that Misha knows the conversation is over.

“I’ll go pack,” Misha says. “I’ll stay with Justin for a while, I think.”

Jensen just nods, watches dumbly as Misha stands and walks down the hall, blinks when he hears the bedroom door shut behind him. It’s another minute or two before Jensen picks up the remote and turns the movie back on.

Paul swings and Jensen flinches.

***

In the end, it’s Jensen who moves out.

He figures he’s the one that should leave, given he’s the one who broke them.

He stays with Mike.

He doesn’t have much of a choice, really. He doesn’t have a lot of friends. Not close ones, anyway. Not friends he’d want to spill his guts to, admit to why it is he’s suddenly homeless. He’s not like Misha.

But he’s known Mike since his first year in Columbus and Mike’s a good guy. Besides Misha, Jensen has only had a handful of what he’d consider to be really good friends. Mainly Rob and Julie, back in high school, Lenny, when he was a kid. There were a couple of guys from the football team a few years ago he really came to care about, and there’s Mike. 

There’s a reason Mike makes the short list.

He doesn’t even ask why Jensen needs to crash on his couch, just gives him an extra key and a commiserating hug and tells Jensen to make himself at home.

Jensen doesn’t.

He sleeps lightly and he doesn’t unpack the one duffle bag he brought with him and he doesn’t buy any groceries. He eats out and he does laundry every four days and he spends more time at the library than he ever did before. Misha said he needed a break, he didn’t say he wanted to break _up_. There’s a very distinct difference and whatever Misha needs at the moment, whatever he needs to get out of his system, Jensen plans on making Misha his again.

He can’t make himself at home here, or anywhere else. His hands are tied.

Misha is home.

***

Misha’s phone goes straight to voicemail, all three times he tries to call.

It’s not surprising. One week apart probably isn’t the time and space Misha said he needed, but Jensen has to try.

***

Sixteen days since he started bunking with Mike, and Jensen lets himself get dragged to a Delta Phi party by a few of the guys in his physiology class.

It’s not his usual scene, not at all, but Mike can be persuasive after a few beers. Besides, it’s the first day of Christmas break and he needs some fun, something to distract him and get his thoughts on anything that’s not his broken heart. And anywhere frat boys are getting hammered is somewhere you can pretty much guarantee Misha will not be.

He feels dull when he stands next to the keg and asks the guy with ridiculously perfect teeth for a drink. He drinks it in one long pull before he hands back the empty plastic cup and asks for another.

They guy smiles, tells him “That’s the spirit!”, claps him on the back and hands him two more.

He wanders around for a while and gives one of his new drinks to Brian, who joined the football team the last year Jensen was on it. Jensen hates small talk, but he’s good at it, so he talks about classes and the weather and asks how the team is holding up. Brian talks about his plans for Christmas and asks if Jensen is still queer, then immediately looks horrified.

“Shit, man,” he apologises. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just, there are some quality honeys here tonight, so I could hook you up. I mean, if you’re into that.”

Jensen barely resists rolling his eyes. Most people have always just assumed that Jensen is gay because Misha is the only one he’s ever been with. Truth is, Jensen experimented a little when he was a teenager and it’s become even more clear over the years that girls do it for him, too.

And while he doesn’t hide that fact, he doesn’t make a point of advertising it, either. What would be the point?

“Thanks, I’m good,” Jensen tells him, instead and heads off in search of his third drink.

Later, there’s a girl with dark brown hair and a stark red tank that shares her mickey of red label with him on one of the couches. She tells him how she wants to work with _Doctors Without Borders_ , once she finishes med school and he listens quietly while her breasts rub lightly, accidentally-on-purpose against his arm.

She’s pretty, sweet. She’s warm when he leans closer and she smiles at him and her fingers dance over his thigh. She wants him. He’s lightheaded and it feels good.

He kisses her.

It’s nice.

He hasn’t thought about Misha in almost an hour.

Except, now he has, so he tells her his friends are waiting for him and leaves her with a lopsided smile and kiss to her forehead.

There’s another girl sometime in the night, with blond hair tied up in a bun and she doesn’t give the impression she’s drinking any booze at all, but she sits in Jensen’s lap and lets his hand wander under her skirt a little too high.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing. This isn’t him. He’s never been the guy who drunkenly fucks around with strangers at parties. He’s never had the chance. And maybe that was kind of Misha’s point. They need to see who Jensen and Misha are when they’re not _Jensen and Misha_. Jensen doesn’t like it so far.

There’s a cute guy with black hair that catches Jensen’s eye when he comes out of the bathroom and Jensen’s pretty sure he could get him on his back by the end of the night. He’s a little tipsy and he misses Misha like fuck and he’s seriously considering it because Misha’s probably off somewhere doing the same and Jensen’s hating himself almost about enough that a cheap hookup sounds like a good idea at the moment. But someone taps him on the shoulder and when he turns around he loses eye contact with the guy.

And just like that, screwing around with someone who isn’t Misha seems like the worst idea ever. It’s kinda funny, he figures, when he sees who’s standing behind him.

“Jared,” he says, snorting a little. He hasn’t seen Jared since… Yeah. He was kind of hoping to never run into him again. He doesn’t want to make the guy feel any more uncomfortable than he already has. “Shit. I’m sorry. I can leave, if you want.”

“I’m that disgusting?” Jared asks, eyebrow cocked and mouth turned up at the corner. He’s teasing. Jared’s _teasing_ him. Like they do that. Like they’re friends or something, which is so far from the case it’s not even funny.

“No!” Jensen answers. “God, no. Just… I know we didn’t exactly part on the best terms.”

Actually, Jared was remarkably cool about the whole thing. He was pissed as hell at Jensen – of course he fucking was. Jensen led Jared on. Unintentionally, perhaps, but he did it. And when Jared pushed for more, Jensen didn’t stop him, not when it mattered. And he did it all without ever telling Jared he had a boyfriend.

But Jared didn’t make any trouble for him; a fact for which Jensen is eternally grateful. Even if it might have ended up costing him Misha, at least he still has a job.

“Yeah,” Jared says, ducks his head and fucking _blushes_ , Jesus Christ. The world is wholly unfair to Jensen. Turns out, after everything, he’s still attracted to the guy.

“So how was… I mean… You look good.”

Jensen laughs.

He can’t help it. He doesn’t even think he _should_ help it, because it’s a funny fucking thing. Jensen looks good. He feels terrible.

“It uh… It didn’t work out like I wanted,” Jensen says, shakes his empty cup and looks around quickly to exchange it for a full one, but doesn’t find anything nearby. Which is a good thing, really. He should probably stop drinking. “Shockingly enough.”

“Yeah,” Jared agrees, but he doesn’t go on. It’s big of him, Jensen figures. Because Jared has a fuckin’ barrel full, here. If anyone was in a position to tell Jensen just exactly how much he deserves what he’s gotten, and if anyone ever had the moral high ground over him, it’s Jared, now.

“You want to get out of here?” Jared asks, and Jensen doesn’t really know what to say to that. 

“I really don’t think…”

“Not like that!” Jared says, pulling a face. “Dude, please. I’m completely over you.” Jensen smiles a little at that. He hopes so. “I just… You look like you could use a friend.”

“That bad, huh?” Jensen asks. He pictures the bags under his eyes and rubs a hand over his stomach to smooth out the wrinkles he knows are all over his shirt. His other hand combs through his hair to flatten down the disarray of tufts and spikes. He showered this morning, but it’s been days since he’s styled it. Jared was lying; he obviously looks like hell.

Jared’s smile gets a little smaller.

“Nah, not really. You look good, like I said. Just a little… out of place.”

Jensen can’t really argue with that, so they go. A coffee shop down the road and Jensen buys them each a hot chocolate and a raised maple. Jared looks at him a little funny but he smiles and digs in and Jensen feels like an asshole for buying Jared Misha’s favourite.

“So I’m getting my little sister a pair of skis for Christmas,” Jared starts. His mouth is full and his bottom lip is dotted with candied maple and Jensen grins along with him. He hasn’t given much thought to Christmas yet, but Jared’s excitement is infectious. “They’re used, but the guy I’m getting them from says they’re really good and my sister has always wanted a pair of her own. Her friend has a pass for this place up north and my sister always wants to go…”

Jensen settles into his seat and he listens to Jared talk.

For the first time in a long time, Jensen shakes off all his bullshit. For the first time in a long time, Jensen means it when he smiles.

He doesn’t know Jared well, hasn’t known Jared long, but Jensen thinks he might soon be adding one more to his very short list of friends.

***

Two days later, Jensen heads home for Christmas. For a split second he wonders if Misha gassed up the car or whether they’ll get to stop at the gas station along the way with the really awesome microwave burritos. But then he remembers that their car is really _Misha’s_ car, and it’s back at their apartment with Misha, and Misha is probably planning on driving home to Cicero without him. If he hasn’t already.

He wants to call and ask, but he’s already called Misha six times since he moved out and if Misha wanted to talk to him, he’d have answered by now.

It’s the twenty-first and he’s already done all his Christmas shopping – started and finished it yesterday – so he tosses the gifts in his suitcase and hops on a bus. There’s a PS3 controller and a 3D copy of Terminator for his brother, Ben. There’s a gift certificate for a weekend at a Niagara Falls hotel for his parents and there’s a copy of _A Clockwork Orange_ on DVD for Rob and the latest _Game of Thrones_ book for Julie. There’s something there for Misha, too, something he bought _months_ ago, but it’s hidden under his laundry and it’s entirely possible it’ll stay that way. 

When the bus turns north on I65, Jensen gets a text from Misha asking if he needs a ride home. Jensen laughs a little and texts back _Thanks, I’m good_. He hesitates for a minute before he adds _I miss you_. He figures that’s not too pathetic. Misha contacted him, offered to spend hours in a car with him, alone. That’s a good sign, right?

He doesn’t hear anything back from Misha after that, but that’s okay.

His parents hug him when he gets home, Ben too. Ben’s fiancée isn’t coming until Christmas day, so for now, it’s just the four of them. It hasn’t been just the four of them in _years_ , and it would be better if Misha was around, absolutely, but it’s also kind of nice. 

For three whole days, Jensen has nothing to do but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother. For three days he _does_ nothing but sleep in and watch cartoons and play Call of Duty with his brother, and his fingers kind of itch every time he looks at his cell phone. He hasn’t called Misha, Misha hasn’t called him and it’s starting to make him a little twitchy. On the fourth day, on Christmas Eve, after he gets home from lunch with Rob and Julie, his parents call him on it.

“Jensen,” his mother says, over peanut butter cookies after his brother fucks off to do some last minute shopping. “Isn’t Misha going to stop by?”

“We’ve got a gift for him,” Jensen’s dad adds. “But we can return it, if…”

Jensen’s mom elbows him in the side and sends him a scowl and Jensen snorts. It’s not funny, but it sort of is. His dad likes Misha, always has, and he’s never been anything but supportive. But no matter how hard he tries, he can never quite hide the fact that he’d be happier if Jensen was with a girl.

“No, mom, it…” Jensen says. He stops and bites his lip and _fuck_ , he can’t believe he’s about to cry, here in front of his parents. He swallows down the tears and tries again. “I mean, yeah. We’re kind of… on hiatus. But don’t go returning anything. It’s not like that.”

“Jensen, if you need to talk about…”

“Mom, seriously. We’re... Can you just leave it for now? Please?”

“Of course, baby,” his mom says. His dad doesn’t say anything, just stands and puts his hand on Jensen’s shoulder, but it speaks a hell of a lot. 

***

“Want me to kick his ass?” his brother asks later on, seemingly out of nowhere, after their parents have gone to bed for the night.

It’s Christmas already, just past midnight. They’re sitting on the couch in front of the tree, eating the cookies they still put out for Santa. Last year, the year before, every year since twelfth grade, Misha was here with them.

“You know,” Ben goes on. “It could be my Christmas present to you. Since I was too cheap to get you a real one.”

“Asshole,” Jensen mumbles, slamming his fist into Ben’s thigh. He’s smiling though; he can’t help it. His family is really pretty great. Jensen sort of hates them for being so cool about it.

They’d probably be acting very differently if they knew the truth. They sure as hell wouldn’t be on his side if he admitted to them that he’s a lying, cheating bastard. That it’s all his fault Misha can’t stand to look at him right now.

He knows he doesn’t deserve their support in this, but he wants it anyway. He’s never felt this alone before and he really kind of needs them right now. Besides, he’s still sort hoping that if he doesn’t talk about anything out loud, it won’t be true.

“Nah. He’d probably win.”

“Oh, ouch,” Ben says, feigning insult. “Just for that…” 

Then he twists around and lunges, grabs Jensen’s wrist in his hand and leans in to lick the side of the cookie he’s been holding.

“You fucker!” Jensen laughs and bends forward, goes for the three cookies remaining on the coffee table in front of them. Ben beats him there, though and picks up the plate, shovelling all three into his mouth at once.

“Ha!” he says, peanut butter crumbs and chunks of chocolate flying out and spilling all over his lap and the couch. And the brand new carpet his parents just put down a month ago. He looks pretty pleased with himself, for a dead man.

“Mom’s gonna kill you,” Jensen says with a smirk, looking down at the floor. Ben follows his line of sight and his eyes go wide when he realises he’s stepped on a piece of chocolate and ground it into the cream-coloured fibres.

“Fwwf!” he mumbles and some more crumbs fall. He spits the half-chewed cookies back out onto the plate and tries again. “Shit. Dude, Mom’s gonna _kill_ me.”

Jensen rolls his eyes, but Ben just looks so damn horrified that he takes pity.

“I’ll get the vacuum,” he says as he stands, careful not to step on any more crumbs. “You get the soap.”

***

Nobody asks him where he’s going when he leaves the house right after Christmas supper, two sugar cookies tucked into his side coat pocket and a small package wrapped in shiny purple slotted into the inside. He stops by the corner store and buys two cups of hot chocolate, brown plastic lids fitted tightly over orange paper. They help keep his hands warm in the chill.

 _Hooper’s_ makes some damn good hot chocolate, and him and Misha have been going there for years, even in the summer. It’s close to Misha’s house and Mrs. Hooper always gives them two for one, because she thinks they’re cute.

The walk from the store to Misha’s place isn’t nearly as long as he remembers it being and he’s standing on the sidewalk at the edge of the driveway before he’s really ready for it.

He takes a dozen more steps and then spends a full minute kicking at the chipped ice patch outside the Collins’ front walk before the curtains flutter and Jensen knows he’s been spotted.

“Shit,” he curses, because that means he can’t chicken out now, can’t turn around and go back home. He doesn’t want to chicken out, just… now he _can’t_ and that’s fucking with him. This whole situation is fucking with him. He’s _nervous_. He’s actually fucking nervous to knock on Misha’s front door. He hasn’t been nervous around Misha since he was sixteen years old and awkwardly fumbling his way through his first blow job. 

God, nothing makes any fucking sense, anymore. He wonders if it’s normal to feel this way, like there’s something important he’s forgetting about, like everything seems backwards and completely unreal. Like everything he needs to make things right again is just a few feet away, but it’s thick and fuzzy, like a dream, like he can’t quite reach it. This can’t be his life, now.

He makes his way up the steps to the front porch and just as he lifts his foot to kick at the door (no, he wasn’t raised in a barn, but his hands are full) it opens wide from the inside.

“Jensen,” Misha greets. His voice isn’t warm, not really and he’s not smiling, but his eyes are happy. If you didn’t know him like Jensen does you wouldn’t be able to tell, but they’re happy. Misha is happy to see him. It’s a good start.

Jensen holds up one hand, shows Misha the dark orange paper cup with the brown lid and cocks his head.

“You want to go for a walk?”

Misha’s mouth turns up at the corner. A smile. An honest to God smile, but it’s gone even faster than it formed.

“Uh, sure,” Misha answers. He takes a few seconds to throw on a coat and a hat and a pair of boots and then he steps outside and follows Jensen down the steps to the sidewalk.

“Mrs. Hooper give you the discount?” he asks, when Jensen hands him the hot chocolate. Jensen grunts in answer and passes Misha one of the cookies from his pocket, wrapped in a napkin and decorated in green frosting.

Misha smiles down at it, doesn’t look at Jensen but unconsciously steps a little closer. It looks like he’s remembering, thinking about last year and the year before and every year before. That’s not exactly what Jensen wants – he doesn’t want Misha to be with him because that’s the way it’s always been any more than Misha wants Jensen that way – but for now, he’ll take it.

“Thank you,” Misha finally says.

“My mom made it,” Jensen tells him, shrugging off the thanks.

“But you decorated it,” Misha says. “I can tell, because the star crosses at the bottom, not the top.”

“Just eat it.”

They walk for a few minutes, straight line, shoulder to shoulder and then Jensen hears a crunch as Misha bites down, and he grins.

There’s not really anywhere for them to go, not on Christmas night, so they take a left at the corner and wind up in the park. There’s a bench by the sandbox that isn’t too much trouble to wipe off with one of the mittens Misha pulls from his pocket, and they wordlessly agree to sit. There’s a light fall of snow over everything, some tiny footprints leading from the bottom of the slide to the swings and the blanket of snow on the field is sort of randomly kicked up and trampled.

There’s a faint glow from the streetlights that’s shadowed by the gold and silver garland strung around them. It sets a brilliant reflection off the blue tinsel snowmen stuck to the bases and casts a warm light over the nearby ground.

It’s pretty, quiet and wonderful in a way that makes Jensen a little more sad.

Jensen lasts about five minutes before he gives up and speaks first. Not that it’s a competition, just. Whatever. He’s never been good at uncomfortable silence and Misha knows that. Wouldn’t kill the guy to throw Jensen a bone here, but Jensen knows that it’s entirely and completely up to him to make things better.

“Fuckin’ freezing out here,” Jensen says, rubbing his hands together. That’s not really what he wants to say, but he’s only wearing a thin jacket and scarf and he hadn’t bothered with gloves. He’s starting to regret that.

“It is,” Misha agrees. “Jensen… what are we doing here?”

Good question. He knows it’s too soon, knows that Misha’s not ready to take him back yet. He’s had plenty of opportunity to let Jensen know, if that was what he wanted. No, the truth is, Jensen’s been going crazy, his skin doesn’t fit anymore, he sort of randomly forgets to do things like go to work and brush his teeth and being close to Misha again is the only thing that makes anything better.

No, he figures, feeling this way isn’t normal. It’s unhealthy and scary and bordering on co-dependent obsession, but sitting next to Misha again, he doesn’t care. The possibility that he could lose Misha forever freaks him the fuck out. He needs him back, the sooner the better.

“I got you…” Jensen starts, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket to pull out Misha’s gift. There’s a red bow on the purple paper, crinkled and flattened, and the corners of the tiny, rectangular box are scuffed. He hands it to Misha and lets his fingertips linger over Misha’s for as long as he can before Misha pulls back.

“Merry Christmas,” he says. “It’s not much, but…”

“It’s tickets to the _Habitat for Humanity_ dinner in February,” Misha says, without even opening the box. He’s been talking about it since the dinner _last_ February.

“Fuckin’ creepy how you can do that,” Jensen grumbles. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thank you, Jensen,” Misha says. “Really. You didn’t have to. I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“Obviously,” Jensen answers, can’t keep a little bit of bitterness out of his tone. He’d sort of stupidly been hoping that Misha would have been expecting him, today.

“Jensen, really,” Misha says, and his tone changes, warm and soft and sorry and it feels like a hug, almost. “What are we doing here?”

Of course, Misha can see through his bullshit, knows Jensen didn’t come see him today just to give him a gift. Of course he won’t let Jensen get away with a lame excuse like that. Jensen bites his lip, bites the bullet.

“Mish,” he sighs, shifts on the seat. Not closer, not further, just… can’t quite figure where he should be. “I don’t want to pressure you, or rush you or anything. I swear, I don’t. Whatever you need, I want to give it to you. But… this break. I guess I need to know if I should start looking for someplace to stay that’s a little more permanent than Mike’s couch.”

Misha looks at him then, really looks and what Jensen sees nearly breaks him. Jensen almost wants to take the question back when Misha finally speaks.

“I wish I could answer that, Jensen. And I’m truly sorry that this is hurting you, because that honestly isn’t my intention. But right now I just… I don’t know.”

***

Jensen goes back to Mike’s place in Columbus two days after Christmas. He’s more miserable than ever and his awesomely supportive family is starting to get on his nerves. His brother is being extra nice, which Jensen hates, because it’s clearly only out of some sort of pity that Jensen doesn’t come close to deserving. 

Plus, he’s getting married in a few months and Jensen is happy for the asshole, he really is, but Jensen can’t really deal with anymore talk about buying houses in decent school zones or joint long-term mutual funds. He wants to mope, alone.

He wants to sit on the couch and read _The Hobbit_ for the tenth time and finally get around to watching _Firefly_ and eat an entire bucket of chicken wings. And he wants to do it alone.

Well, no. What he _wants_ is to do it with Misha sitting next to him, but he can’t.

Because Misha doesn’t know. Fuck. _Misha doesn’t know_. The one constant, the one fact that’s been inarguable for the past decade, is that Misha knows. Misha set his sights on Jensen when Jensen was fifteen years old and it might have taken Jensen a while to come around, Jensen might have experienced jealousy and confusion and uncertainty, but Misha never has.

Misha has known from day one that they were meant to be, that they’d _always_ be and he’s never been afraid to say so. Misha has always known.

But now? Now he just… doesn’t.

Jensen doesn’t read _The Hobbit_ and he doesn’t watch _Firefly_ and he doesn’t eat any chicken at all. He spends three days watching re-runs of _Gilligan’s Island_ and working on his thesis paper. He eats Beefaroni straight from the can, and cold peas and carrots, and he finishes off the Lucky Charms Mike hid behind the Special K.

He jerks off each morning the shower, thinking about Misha. Okay, Jude Law for about five minutes once, but mostly Misha.

***

His phone rings on New Year’s Eve.

He has to dig through the wadded up blankets and root around under the couch cushions to find it, but he manages to answer right before his voicemail picks up.

It’s Jared. He says some people in his dorm a throwing a party and he knows it’s last minute, but if Jensen isn’t busy he’s more than welcome to come.

Jensen wasn’t really aware that he and Jared were at the stage in their… what? Acquaintanceship? Friendship, maybe? Yeah, he’s going with Friendship. He’d like to be Jared’s friend, he thinks and he hopes he hasn’t screwed that up. Anyway, he wasn’t aware until just now that they were the kind of friends that call each other up and invite each other to parties.

Maybe they’re not, and Jared’s just trying to be nice, because Jensen is a great big boyfriendless loser who was planning on ringing in the new year with pizza delivery and a _Planet of the Apes_ marathon.

He knows he’s going to regret it even as he agrees, but he’s feeling sorry for himself and it doesn’t matter at the moment that getting shit-faced around a guy he kinda sorta likes, when he’s still hoping to win back the boyfriend he fucked over is a bad, _bad_ idea.

Jensen hasn’t been feeling like himself in weeks and booze, noise and a floor full of strangers sounds like exactly what he needs right now.

Jared greets him with a smile and a one-armed hug when he comes downstairs to meet him and he takes the bottle of rum that Jensen holds up for him.

“Thanks, man,” Jared says, leading him to the elevator. The doors open immediately and Jared hits the button for the seventh floor, once they step inside. Jensen’s breath sort of catches in his throat at that. He made some pretty great memories on the seventh floor, a long time ago. “But you didn’t have to. We’ve got plenty of alcohol here, believe me.”

“No worries,” Jensen tells him. “I stole it from a buddy of mine. He won’t miss it.” Mike will probably actually miss it a lot. At least, he’ll pretend to, which will be almost as funny.

The doors open and Jared steps out first, Jensen following a beat later. He takes a slow breath and waits for Jared to show him the way while he tries to calm the suddenly rapid beating of his heart. Shit, it’s been years since Jensen’s been in this building. Not since Misha was a freshman and Jensen came to visit him. It’s weird, being back. Everything seems smaller and sort of far away.

He shakes off the maudlin turn his thoughts are taking and starts walking where Jared points.

“My room’s down this hall, at the corner. My roommate is still at home for the break, so you can crash on his bed, if you want.”

Jensen’s not planning on drinking enough to have to sleep anywhere near Jared tonight.

“Thanks,” he says anyway, when Jared opens the door and they go in. Jared puts the bottle down on his desk and Jensen looks around. Misha had a single and Jensen never lived in campus housing, but this room looks just like he pictured, only bigger.

Jared leaves his door propped open with a giant art textbook and they can hear the sounds of music and laughter coming from the opposite hallway.

“I’m just waiting for a couple more friends to call up,” Jared explains, when they each take a seat on one of the beds. Jensen doesn’t know who the bed he’s sitting on belongs to, but he’d guess it’s Jared’s. There’s a shaggy pink throw pillow in the shape of a giant heart resting against the headboard and he doesn’t know Jared all that well, but it seems like his style. “Then we can head to the common room and get our party on.”

He’s smiling again and _fuck_ , that smile is going to be Jensen’s undoing. He’s known that right from the start, since back in September, when Jared walked into his classroom and took a seat in the front row.

Jensen stiffens a little and there’s sort of an awkward silence while he tells himself again that coming here was a very, very bad idea, but then he remembers that he came here tonight to have a good time, not to wallow. He could be wallowing back on Mike’s couch, where it’s warm and dim and comfortable.

“So uh…” Jensen starts. He forces a smile and tries to make himself more comfortable on the bed, pushes back so he’s almost reclining against the giant pink heart. “Any good dorm life stories so far?”

“Oh, dude,” Jared says, smile growing wider as he pushes back to sit cross-legged on his roommate’s deep blue comforter. He looks like he might just start bouncing from sheer enthusiasm and Jensen’s belly feels warm. He likes the feeling, and he doesn’t at the same time. “My first week here. My roommate moved all his stuff in, right? But he was staying somewhere else with a friend who lives in town. Anyway, my best friend from back home, Chad. He came to see me and he spent the night, and we’d been drinking. A _lot_.”

“Is this a cautionary tale about teen pregnancy?” Jensen jokes, craning his neck to make a show of checking out Jared’s belly.

“Oh, fuck you!” Jared laughs. “No. Anyway, he was sleeping in Brian’s bed and he’s completely naked and at, like, four in the morning, he decides he really has to take a piss…”

Jensen laughs while Jared finishes his story and launches into another and then things aren’t even close to awkward anymore.

***

The infamous Chad shows up with his girlfriend about half an hour later and the four of them join the party. There’s plenty of booze, there’s a giant bowl of leftover Halloween candy and there is a table piled high with about a dozen different pizzas.

There are two television set up on either side of the room – one is tuned into the party at Times Square and there’s a Nintendo Wii hooked up to the other, where people spend most of the night alternating between _Super Smash Brothers_ and _Rock Band_.

The people are nice enough, even though most of them are sophomores, at best. They’re loud and gross and they’re having a wonderfully immature brand on fun that Jensen hasn’t indulged in in a few years, at least. He feels his extra few years acutely, every minute. Feels out of place, like some creepy loser who can’t make any friends his own age. 

He’s not so sure after all that this was a better idea than sitting home alone, but it’s better than hanging out with Mike, or Rob or Justin. At least the kids here don’t know him, don’t know what he did (with the exception of Jared) and won’t silently judge him for being a cheating bastard.

He mostly minds his own business and helps himself to a few drinks and after about an hour or so, he’s buzzed enough that most of his discomfort has worn off.

At some point, Jared has a go at vocals on _Rock Band_ and he sucks so bad that with six shots of tequila and three beers in him, Jensen can’t stop laughing for a full five minutes. Jared and his friends manage to coax Jensen into taking a turn, though the fourth beer that Chad shoves into his hand probably helps.

He manages to suck marginally less than Jared did, which he counts as a win and halfway through Chad’s brilliant guitar solo two songs later, they hear the countdown start. Someone hits pause and everyone grabs a drink and the entire room starts to chant along with the television.

“Seven, six, five!” people belt out and scramble to fill their glasses. Jensen’s happy enough at the moment to raises his glass on “one!”, but he can’t help the way his chest feels tight and he finds it hard to swallow when the new year rolls in. He and Jared lean back against the wall and watch pretty much everyone else in the room pair up to share a kiss, and his lips sort of tingle. He was twelve years old the last time he didn’t have someone to kiss at midnight.

He very pointedly doesn’t wonder if Misha is kissing someone right now. He doesn’t want to torture himself. Instead he turns his head and smiles at Jared.

“Mortal Kombat?” he suggests.

“Hell yeah!” Jared agrees, and less than five minutes later they’re back in Jared’s room with Chad and Jennifer and Jared’s old Playsation. 

***

Chad and Jen take off around two in the morning. A bunch of people are suddenly struck with a case of the munchies that stale mini-Twix bars can’t cure so they head out to the twenty-four hour convenience store a few blocks away and Jared’s friends walk with them, to the bus stop.

Brian’s bed is glaringly empty when the door closes behind the couple, but Jensen follows Jared onto the bed with the pink heart pillow, to hear more stories. He almost feels guilty that he’s not doing much of any kind of talking, he’s not holding up his end of this tentative friendship they’ve got going by letting Jared in on any of his experiences or habits or plans for the future.

It’s all been so very one-sided so far between them, but Jared seems to get that, seems to think it’s okay, at least for now and he fills in Jensen’s blanks. And _God_ , he smells good. Shit, it’s possible Jensen went overboard with the Jager shots.

They’re lying side by side, staring at the ceiling and Jared is waving his arms around, talking animatedly about the film class he signed up for that starts next week. Jensen was always a little more muted about that kind of thing, about every kind of thing, really and Jared’s enthusiasm makes him smile. _Jared_ makes him smile.

Jared makes him a lot of things. 

Before he knows what he’s doing he’s rolling onto his side, burying his face into the crook of Jared’s neck. He’s warm and soft beside Jensen, a welcome feeling after being so lonely for so long, but he’s too tall and the angles are all wrong. It’s different, so very different and he _knew_ this was a bad idea, but Jensen is starting to suspect that Jared is some kind of warlock, cast on a spell on him or something, because despite everything, he can’t stop himself.

Doesn’t really want to.

“Jensen?” Jared asks and his body gets a little stiffer. Jensen pauses for a moment and _doesn’t_ think about how wrong this is. Okay, he does, but he ignores it. “What… what are you doing?”

He doesn’t know. Fuck, Misha doesn’t know and Jensen _doesn’t fucking know_. This is a mistake. This is a horrible, horrible mistake, just like the last time, because if he goes through with this, Misha might not ever take him back. Misha wanted a break, so they’re breaking, they’re… Jensen is doing what Misha wants here, so why the fuck does he feel so guilty?

Fuck, he’s way too drunk for this.

“You’re so hot, Jared,” Jensen mumbles against his shoulder, opens his mouth to press his lips to Jared’s collar bone. He licks over the skin and Jared shivers under his touch, doesn’t push him away. “God, you’re so hot. And you’re _nice_ ,” he says, rolls further on top of Jared and Jared whimpers a little, spreads his legs for Jensen to fall between.

“Jensen…”

“I mean, you’re a genuinely _nice_ guy. Not a lot of people are. Fuck. And you’re funny and smart and fucking _adorable_. And you know it, too.”

“Jensen,” Jared says again and it almost sounds like a warning, a plea. But Jared tilts his head back further and his arms close around Jensen’s back, so Jensen closes his teeth down over Jared’s jugular and thrusts his hips forward.

Jared’s hard, Jensen’s hard and they both gasp at the contact. It feels good, so fucking good, but it doesn’t feel _right_. Jensen doesn’t care. He grabs Jared’s head between his hands, tilts it down and kisses him. It’s harsh and demanding and Jared opens to him, lets Jensen’s tongue inside and pushes against it with his own. He bites at Jensen’s lips and claws at Jensen’s back and his legs wrap around Jensen’s and pull him down.

For one brief, miserable moment, Jensen thinks that this is actually going to happen. 

But then Jared pushes at his shoulders, turns his head and sucks in several deep breaths while Jensen’s head falls to Jared’s chest.

“ _Jensen_.”

“You’re amazing,” Jensen tells him, still breathing heavily into Jared’s shirt. “This whole thing… It’s all because you’re so… _Shit_. It’s because I’m a selfish jerk. It’s not… It’s just so easy to like you.”

“Jensen, we can’t do this,” Jared tells him. Jensen goes willingly enough when Jared rolls him off and to the side. “You think you want this now, but you’re drunk and you’re just gonna hate yourself when you sober up. Hell, _I’m_ gonna hate you. I don’t deserve to be dicked around like this.”

“Jared, I…” Jensen starts. He wants to deny it, but he can’t. He’s not over Misha, doesn’t even want to be. Misha might need time to figure out what he wants, but Jensen already knows. Anything that might have happened here tonight wouldn’t be fair to anyone.

“I get it,” Jared stops him. “I really do.”

“Because you’re awesome,” Jensen mumbles.

Jared smiles.

“Because I’m awesome. And because I wasn’t lying when I said that I’m over you, but.”

“…But?” Jensen shouldn’t care. Jensen _doesn’t_ care.

“But you’re pretty awesome, too. And I’m eighteen years old. There’s only so much I can take before I say ‘fuck it’, you know?”

Jensen laughs then, a little. He rolls all the way over, onto his back and he shuts his eyes.

“Yeah,” he agrees. He’s never been in Jared’s situation, never experienced a want like this that he couldn’t follow through on. Not until now.

“Just… let’s get some sleep,” Jared suggests. “Tomorrow we can have pancakes.”

Jensen closes his eyes tighter. Pancakes are his favourite.

“Yeah,” he whispers, and lets Jared pull the covers up over them, while they turn so they face opposite directions. “French toast is good, too.”

***

Classes start up again a few days later and Mike doesn’t really ask if Jensen is planning on staying with him very much longer, but Jensen takes the hint anyway and rents a room on the ground floor of Jared’s dorm building. The university only charges fifteen bucks a night for students who need a place to crash after a late study session or need to be at school for an early class, so it’s affordable, at least. It’s not intended as a long-term housing solution and he’s got to share a room with three other guys, but he could tell he was starting to cramp Mike’s style.

It’ll do, for now. He’s not anywhere near the place where he needs to find himself an actual apartment. If he keeps putting it off, maybe he won’t ever have to.

Morgan is on his ass for the final draft of their journal paper and Mike still wants to hang out every other day but Jensen manages to get himself back on track. He’s ahead in his classes, his thesis is coming along faster than he’d planned and the paper for Morgan should be done in a week or two, tops.

He hasn’t spoken to Misha since Christmas, Jared since New Year’s, and he’s beginning to think social exile is working for him.

Then he bumps into Jared one afternoon as they’re both entering the dorm and instead of the stilted conversation and awkward avoidance Jensen had expected, they wind up at the campus pub sharing a basket of chicken wings and a pitcher of beer.

And the weird thing? He doesn’t want to jump the guy. Not even when they get a little tipsy and have to prop each other up on the way back home. Jared’s touch is good. Really fucking good, and if Jensen were to sort of step back and squint, yes, he’d absolutely fuck him. But as it stands, he doesn’t want to.

Jensen’s having a hard time reconciling that new development with all his previous experiences with the guy, when Jared lets out an incredibly loud burp.

“Dude, gross!” Jensen says, gagging a little and waving his hand in front of his face. He pushes Jared away and they both stumble slightly. “I can smell what you had for breakfast, man!”

They laugh then and suddenly it’s like all that sexual tension was never even there.

***

 _The Green Hornet_ comes out in theaters and Jensen plans to see it with Mike, but he calls on Saturday afternoon and tells Jensen he can’t make it. Kristin has finally agreed to go on a date with him and Mike didn’t want to argue when she said it had to be today, which Jensen totally understands. She’s way out of his league and Mike needs to do what he can to nail that down, so he doesn’t hold it against him.

Besides, Jared is happy to fill in for him, even if he insists that he’s not a cheap date and makes Jensen buy him a large tub of popcorn with extra butter, and two packages of gummy bears.

Jensen grabs himself a bottle of water and decides to steal at least half of Jared’s popcorn, instead of buying his own. Jared holds it as far away from Jensen as he can while they walk into the theatre to find their seats and he laughs and holds it up above his head when Jensen tries to grab some.

“That’s just cheating, dude,” Jensen says, when the tub is so high he can’t possibly reach it without actually tackling Jared to the ground. Which would probably only result in popcorn all over the floor, not in his mouth, so. Bad idea. “Totally uncool.”

Jensen takes a chance and digs his fingers into Jared’s side, wriggles them around and laughs in triumph when Jared cries out, curls in on himself to protect against his vulnerabilities.

“Ticklish,” Jensen says, shaking his head as he snatches the popcorn from Jared’s hand. “I knew it.”

He’s not watching where he’s going, too busy watching Jared to make sure he doesn’t fall, or take someone out with a flailing limb, so when he walks head-on into another movie-goer he pulls up and immediately starts to apologise.

And this his mouth snaps shut.

It’s Misha.

“Wow,” he says, like a moron. “Uh, sorry. I wasn’t….”

“You never watch where you’re going,” Misha smiles. “One of these days, you’re going to step on the wrong person.”

“Yeah,” Jensen says, because he can’t really say anything else to that. Misha looks _really fucking good_ and Jensen sort of just wants to stare at him for a while. His hands twitch and flex around the popcorn bucket with the urge to reach out and touch. Then he gets it together and does his best to smile. “I’m graceful. You know I am.”

Misha breathes out deeply then, the line of his shoulders gets a little lower and he steps a little closer when he says, “of that I have no doubt.”

He can feel himself leaning in, feel the pull, his body giving into the natural state of _together_. It’s Misha. Misha is his centre of gravity, always will be and it’s nearly impossible not to step forward and wrap his arms around Misha, pull him close. It’s something that’s so ingrained, so instinctual and he wants it so bad he might actually do it. He feels silly, young and idiotic and idealistic and he loves it.

He feels a hand at his shoulder then, looks around quickly to see that Jared’s stepped up beside him and when Misha notices too, he takes a step back again. He wants to say _no_ , tell Misha it’s not what it looks like, but he doesn’t know how to say it without making things awkward. He’s mulling the words over, just getting their order down pat when someone comes up behind Misha and slings his arm around Misha’s shoulders.

“Darling, there you are,” the guy says, in some douchey accent. His hair is artfully mussed and the deep V cut of his t-shirt is showing off way too much skin and Jensen hates him on sight. His mouth turns up in a crooked smile as his fingers dance over Misha’s chest. His arm pulls Misha closer and Jensen grinds his teeth. “They didn’t have any pretzels, but I got you something called _cool ranch_.”

Misha doesn’t answer right away, Jensen doesn’t say anything either and then this joker finally looks up, feigns surprise that there are actually two other people standing right in front of them. 

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” he says, to Jensen and Jared. Then he turns to Misha. “I didn’t realise you’d run into some friends.”

And that’s just about enough. Whoever the fuck this guy is, it’s about time he found out who _Jensen_ is. Jensen narrows his eyes at the guy and takes a deep breath, ready to launch into some long-winded threat masquerading as explanation, some cheap, caveman move so this guy knows to back the fuck off.

Misha shuts him up with only a look.

“Jensen,” Misha says. “This is Sebastian.” Sebastian. Okay. Sebastian the jackass who thinks he can call Misha ‘darling’ and act like Jensen isn’t the boyfriend, here. Fine. Jensen nods at _Sebastian_ and Sebastian grins back and Jensen thinks he might ask them to sit with him and Jared. Maybe wrangle them so he’s sitting next to Misha and try out some of that fake yawn action.

But then Misha punches him right in the gut with his next words.

“He’s my date.”

Jensen has to fight for his next breath but he manages not to fall over. He licks his lips and leans a little closer to Jared, who helpfully props him up. Sebastian, the fucker, just smiles a little creepier and tugs Misha ever closer. Misha looks more than a little uncomfortable, which is so unlike him it’s disturbing. Misha’s usually comes across as never anything but completely at ease.

“Yeah, that’s…” Jensen says, floundering. “That’s great. Have fun, guys. I hear this movie is… Yeah. Good.”

He knows he looks miserable, knows by how Misha looks at him with pity in his eyes and Sebastian smirks ever so slightly as he angles Misha up the stairs and into the back row, perfect for making out. Knows by how Jared leans into him, hand squeezing at the base of his neck and mouth pressed against his ear to whisper, “You okay?”

“I didn’t even introduce you,” he says lamely, even though it has pretty much nothing to do with anything.

Jared just chuckles, pulls him in so they’re facing each other. It’s a show. An unnecessary show but Jensen goes along with it anyway, because Misha is on a date. Christ. He figured this was a possibility. Figured it was inevitable, really, because Misha is so unbelievably amazing that people were probably chasing after him since the second he became available, but it still hurts more than he’d thought it would. 

“Misha knows who I am. And his boyfriend probably doesn’t care. Don’t worry about it, man.”

Jensen flinches at Jared’s casual use of the word ‘boyfriend’, because boyfriend is different than date. Very different. And Jensen’s not sure he’s ready for Misha to have a _boyfriend_. He probably won’t ever be.

“No,” Jensen says, shaking his head slightly to clear it and Jared’s eyes are way too soft. He’s too close. Way too close and Jensen takes a step back. “No it’s… I’m not worried.”

Jared’s smile changes then, less playful distraction and more concern.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You want to find a seat?” he asks, gesturing with the hand that’s holding the two packages of candy to a row off to their right.

“Yeah,” Jensen says absently, follows Jared to the middle of the row and he spends the entire movie trying not to look back to where he just knows that Sebastian, the fucker, is down on his knees sucking Misha’s cock.

***

Jensen’s problem, he figures, is that he’s been acting like an enormous pussy.

The way to get his boyfriend back is clearly not to sit back on his ass and wait for Misha to realise that Jensen’s the only one for him. The way to get him back is to go out and _prove_ to Misha that he’s the only one. Prove that just because Jensen screwed up once, it was _just once_ and he’s way better for Misha than anybody else out there could ever hope to be.

Prove that _Sebastian_ can’t even compare.

He knows he needs to tread carefully, work slowly and not push too hard. Which is fine, because while Jensen has never in his life tried to woo someone and doesn’t really even know where to start, he is nothing if not patient.

He lasts approximately thirty-nine hours before he breaks and calls Misha. 

He’s pretty much the exact opposite of suave and practiced, but that probably works to his advantage when he stumbles his way through asking Misha to meet him for lunch on Wednesday. Misha has always said that Jensen’s cute when he’s nervous.

They both sort of automatically gravitate to their usual table in the student centre and when they sit down to eat the gyros Jensen bought for them, he catches Jared’s eye. Jared’s working right now – at the deli next to the Greek place – and Jensen should have thought to check first. He probably could have scored some free food.

Jared smiles and gives him a goofy thumbs-up and Jensen snickers before he can help himself. Misha, of course, turns to see what’s so funny and when he looks back at Jensen it’s with a resigned, tilted, grin.

“How have you been, Jensen?” Misha asks, licking at the corner of his mouth with the tip of his tongue before taking a drink of his coke. Fuck, that tongue. Jensen’s pants get a little tight remembering what it can do. He doesn’t let it get to him though. He’s got more important things to concentrate on.

He wants Misha for a lot of reasons, probably the least of which is his tongue. And considering Misha can give head like a porn star, that’s saying something about Jensen’s deep and profound love.

“How do you think I’ve been?” he answers, scowling. He then immediately curses under his breath and forces himself to relax. You catch more flies with honey, and all that, right? It’s not Misha’s fault he’s been miserable. Besides, Misha looks pretty damn relaxed. Or he would to someone who didn’t know him so well. As it is, Jensen can see the tight line of his shoulders, the strain across his forehead, the way his fingers grip his napkin a little too tight and he knows this is just as hard on Misha as it is on him.

It’s like Christmas, but worse. Because now Jensen knows that Misha is dating some loser called _Sebastian_ and Misha probably thinks Jensen is dating Jared and Misha’s probably gone from ‘I don’t know’ to ‘It’s been nice knowing you’.

Fuck.

“Sorry. I didn’t… I don’t want to take this out on you. But I’ve been shitty, Misha. Thanks for asking.”

He smiles a crooked smile, forced as it is and Misha bursts out laughing.

“Glad I could amuse,” Jensen mumbles and Misha reaches across the table to place a hand over Jensen’s forearm. And then it’s okay. It’s fine that Misha’s laughing at his pain because Misha is touching him and Jensen pretty much never wants to get up from this table again.

Misha must see his face light up, must feel the tension flow out of him because his smile turns genuine and he gives Jensen’s arm a squeeze, before he pulls back.

“Things not going well with Jared, then?” Misha asks, after a few more bites of his sandwich. He’s going for cool, aloof and if he was sitting across from anyone but Jensen he’d be doing a damn good job of it. He’s antsy, Jensen can tell. He wants to know but he doesn’t want to ask. He wants to hear that Jensen hasn’t moved on.

It’s a huge fucking relief and Jensen doesn’t even bother trying to drag it out or play it cool. He’d be torturing himself more than Misha, anyway.

“Jared’s just a friend,” he says. “I’m not interested in anyone but you. I can’t believe you’d think otherwise.”

Misha ducks his head briefly but then looks back at Jensen and says, “the two of you certainly looked cozy at the movie the other day.”

“No,” Jensen says. “I mean, I literally can’t believe it. You’re fishing, Mish. Admit it.”

Misha chuckles then and takes another sip of his drink. 

“Guilty,” he says. “But, you _were_ out with him on Saturday night. It’s okay if you’re dating him, Jensen. It’s okay to experience things, people. That’s the whole point of…” 

He trails off, looking down at the table, truly uncomfortable for the first time since they sat down. That’s okay. Jensen can finish the sentence for him.

“The whole point of you breaking up with me? So that we can date other people? Fuck other people? Fall in love with other people?” Fuck, just saying it makes Jensen’s mouth taste bad, makes his stomach queasy and his sandwich threaten to come back up.

Misha just shrugs, the Zen bastard. “Perhaps,” he says and Jensen wants to punch him in the face.

“And what about Sebastian?” Jensen snarls. God, he wishes he could just shut the hell up because he knows he’s not doing himself any favours here. Misha did not take it well the one and only time Jensen had gotten jealous in the past and he’s not likely to take it any better now, when Jensen has even less right to it. He can’t help it, though. Misha should be with _him_ , not anyone else. “How’s that going?”

“Well,” Misha answers with a stilted nod. “Thanks for asking.”

Jensen blinks and he squeezes his cup so hard the plastic lid pops off. It’s going _well_ with Sebastian. Fuck.

“Are you and him…” Jensen starts to ask, and he’s not sure how he wants to finish. Together? Fucking? Making plans for that European asshat to move all his stuff into Jensen’s drawers?

He doesn’t get a chance to ask any of those things though, because Misha stands up, collects his garbage in one hand and his book bag in the other.

“I have to get to class,” Misha says. “It was… nice to see you, Jensen.”

Jensen just stares after and thinks that no, for the first time ever, it really wasn’t.

***

Jensen might be down, but he’s not out.

Not even close.

In fact, no. He’s not even down.

He and Misha have history, they have destiny, they have true and unending love and by the time Jensen’s finished with him, Misha’s going to be asking “Sebastian who?”

When they first went out back in high school, Misha wore a girl’s cheerleading uniform for over a week, until Jensen finally agreed to a date. Jensen was broke and nervous and awkward and he ended up taking Misha to an arcade and then snuck him into a chick flick.

Misha still has that uniform (he wore it most recently six months ago while they fucked on the couch, Misha straddling Jensen’s lap with the short, pleated skirt fanned out around his thighs and his hard cock lifting up the front) so Jensen waits until he knows Misha isn’t home and then he lets himself in and digs it out of the closet.

It’s more than a little snug on Misha and it looks absolutely ridiculous on Jensen, but that’s okay. That’s actually the point.

He’s not going to school dressed up like this. He’s a semi-professional and he’s got students he needs to look appropriate for and a boss he doesn’t want to freak out too badly, but his move needs to be public. Misha’s was.

When he knows that Misha is on his way home from the office (he calls and talks to Katie, who shares with Misha, and she tells him he just left for home) he stands out front of their building and waits.

It’s fucking freezing outside and when a chilly gust of wind blows up his skirt he swears and cups his hands around his prick, for fear it’s going to freeze right off. Shit, maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea. When Misha pulled this stunt, it was barely fall.

He gets mistaken for a prostitute twice (they don’t live in the best neighbourhood) and the second time he nearly punches the guy in the mouth, but it pays off when he hears Misha’s car pull into the lot and a minute later, Misha steps around the corner.

He stops moving the second he sees Jensen, his eyes blown wide and mouth hanging open.

“…Jensen?”

“Hey, Misha,” Jensen says, smiles and walks a little closer, exaggerating the swing of his hips. He knows he looks like a complete fool, but Misha’s starting to smile now too, and he really doesn’t care.

“Jensen, what are you doing?”

“I’m asking you out on a date,” Jensen explains, chances another step so that he’s close enough to Misha to touch him.

“Are you?” Misha asks, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not doing a very good job of that, so far.”

“Go out with me.”

“That wasn’t asking,” Misha points out, and Jensen’s smile grows wider. A playful Misha is a very, very good thing.

“Go out with me,” Jensen says again.

“You look ridiculous.”

“And I’ll keep on looking ridiculous until you agree to go out with me.”

“Jensen, be serious.”

“Oh, I’m very serious. I’m done with sitting around and waiting. I want you, I love you and I’m gonna win you back. You’ll come home to me standing outside your door dressed like a high school cheerleader every damn day until you agree to go out on a date with me. And I’ve got to warn you – in this outfit, I appear to be a serious catch.”

Misha lets out short bark of laughter but after a moment his smile dims.

“It’s not that easy, Jensen,” he says. “You can’t just show up here being your irresistibly adorable self and expect everything to be okay again.”

“I know that,” Jensen tells him. “Believe me, I know that. That’s why I’m just asking for one date. You and me, we’ll go somewhere nice. Ease into it and see if we want to think about going back. But you’ve got to agree to give me a real chance here, don’t shut me out. If you can’t do that, if you _really_ can’t do that, then you gotta let me go, once and for all. Okay?”

Misha just looks at him. His head is cocked slightly and his eyes are narrowed and he just _looks_ at him.

“Okay,” he finally says. “You can pick me up Friday at seven.”

Jensen heaves a huge sigh of relief.

“Oh, thank God,” he says. “Because I was totally bluffing with that ‘let me go’ crap. I was about thirty seconds away from weeping and begging, man.” 

Misha chuckles and shakes his head as he opens the front door of the building.

“You better come inside and get changed,” he says, and Jensen follows him up to their apartment.

He changes back into his normal clothes and he lingers for a few seconds by the door while Misha fiddles around in the kitchen. He’s half hoping Misha will ask him to stay for a while, but he’s got a fucking _date_ on Friday, so he’s not even all that disappointed when Misha doesn’t.

“You should probably get going,” Misha says. “I’ll see you on Friday.” 

Jensen nods and slips back into his shoes. He’s halfway out the door when Misha speaks again and his words make Jensen smile all the way back to the dorm.

“And if you stretched out that sweater, you’re buying me a new one.”

***

Friday evening at seven o’clock exactly, Jensen knocks on Misha’s door. _Their_ door. Whatever. He’s still got his keys, so he let himself into the building, but he waits patiently in the hallway outside the apartment for Misha to answer.

Misha looks good and Jensen tells him so, leans in to kiss his cheek and wishes he thought to bring a gift – flowers or some pot, or something. Misha likes presents. He also likes blow jobs, but Jensen doesn’t think one of those would go over so hot at the moment, so he sticks with the kiss.

Jensen really appreciates it when Misha does nothing but laugh out loud and go with it, when Jensen walks him down the stairs and straight to his own car.

It’s a piece of shit Pontiac that’s about a thousand years old and it’s the only car Jensen has ever sort of owned. Misha bought it when he first went off to university and Jensen just kind of adopted it when he followed. Jensen’s probably driven the thing more than Misha has anyway, so it’s familiar, comfortable almost, to watch Misha fiddle with the radio as Jensen drives.

“You said somewhere nice,” Misha says, when Jensen pulls up outside Mike’s building five minutes later. It’s a run down four story walk-up that’s in serious need of a coat of paint. And an exterminator. And a reinforced foundation. “This… is not nice.”

“There aren’t actually any arcades within fifty miles of here,” Jensen tells him. “Believe me, I looked.” He gets out of the car and walks around to the passenger side.

“That doesn’t actually explain anything.”

“Yeah,” Jensen says, taking Misha’s hand and helping him out of his seat, shutting the car door behind him. “It does.”

When Jensen opens Mike`s door and ushers Misha into the apartment, Misha pauses just inside the living room and he looks back at Jensen with the most adorable smile. It’s small, slight, but it’s lighting up his entire face and he looks like he wants to jump up and down.

“Never mind,” he says. “For right now, this is the nicest place in Columbus.”

It’s still pretty ghetto, Jensen has to admit, but he did his best.

The scuffed and stripped walls are covered in deep purple sheets, tacked up with push pins and hanging soft, like drapes. He put up twinkle lights, criss-crossing over the ceiling and there are no less than a dozen lava lamps going, casting the room in a warm, reddish glow.

But the best part is how he’s borrowed electronics from just about everyone he knows to create the closest approximation to an actual arcade that he could manage.

He’s got four televisions spread out on Mike’s coffee table. Two of them are black and white with about 12 inch screens, which he borrowed (along with the fifty inch flatscreen) from his office mates. He’s got them hooked up to Mike’s PS3, Jared’s original Playstation, one of those ‘twenty-five in one’ arcade classic console pieces of crap he picked up at a game shop, and a Sega Genesis he borrowed from Jeff Morgan, of all people.

There are two computers, Mike’s laptop and his own, set up on the kitchen table (which he’d moved into the living room) and there’s an original Nintendo emulator installed on one and an Atari emulator on the other. 

Every screen is flashing at the game menu, asking the user to hit the start button.

It’s a big risk, setting this up. Misha isn’t really much of a video game guy, but he’s going for a whole thing here, with how they first got together, so he’s hoping Misha gets that. He’s also got some Christina Applegate movie lined up on Netflix for later. It’s probably not the one they watched on their first date, but Jensen can’t really be sure.

He wasn’t paying enough attention to the movie to remember what it was, eight years later.

“I uh,” Jensen says, gesturing at the kitchen and he ushers Misha toward the couch before he can look at the mess Jensen left. “I made falafel.” Because even though they ended up eating tacos that day, Jensen distinctly remembers Misha telling him that he liked falafel. He doesn’t know if Misha remembers, too. Probably doesn’t. It’s a silly, anally-retentive thing to remember.

Jensen only remembers because he’s been crazy about Misha since the day they met.

“You want to eat now, or play some _Mike Tyson’s Punch Out_ first?”

For several long seconds Misha doesn’t answer and Jensen’s afraid he made a terrible mistake. Fuck, he was hoping this ‘nervous around Misha’ thing would be gone by now.

“I am so very much in love with you, Jensen,” Misha says, and Jensen blinks and sits down on the couch next to him. That’s something Jensen had pretty much been counting on, but the way Misha’s saying it doesn’t exactly sound like the start of happy reunion.

“But?” Jensen prompts, because it really sounds like there’s a but.

“But nothing,” Misha says, reaches over and takes Jensen’s hand. “I’m not promising that I can go back to what we were, but I can tell you truthfully and without a doubt that I’m head over heels in love with you. I can’t imagine ever not feeling that way.”

Jensen wonders what Misha’s new boyfriend would think of that, but he doesn’t bring it up. Things are going well. Better than well, and Jensen doesn’t want to rock the boat.

He kicks Misha’s ass at the video games, just like last time and when it hits ten o’clock and they’ve played every game at least five times, Jensen’s stomach starts to grumble. They eat the falafel, along with some hummus and a salad that Jensen made entirely from scratch, and after they get through what turns out to be _Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead_ , Misha’s yawns have become so wide he can’t hide them anymore.

“I should take you home,” Jensen says, even though what he really wants is to go home _with_ Misha and stay there. But they agreed to one date, to test the waters and Jensen is a man of his word. “You look beat.”

The drive back is quiet. The good kind of quiet, the kind of quiet that makes him feel like maybe it would be okay if he kissed Misha goodnight tonight, the kind that makes him want to hold Misha’s hand.

“I had a wonderful time tonight,” Misha tells him, when he walks Misha from the car to the front door of the building. “Thank you, Jensen.”

“Next week,” is Jensen’s response. Then, “I mean, me too. But… Next week. Go out with me again?”

It wouldn’t be ideal, this living on campus and occasionally dating Misha, but it’s better than no Misha at all, so Jensen’s sure as shit not going to complain. But then Misha smiles and he reaches his hands out to grab Jensen by the arms and he pulls him forward, flush against Misha’s body.

And then he kisses him. It’s not sloppy or dirty or desperate like Jensen misses about them sometimes. It’s clean and chaste and it makes Jensen’s fucking _toes_ tingle, God. Jensen blindly attempts to follow when Misha breaks the kiss and pulls back and Misha laughs and gently puts a hand on Jensen’s chest, keeping him in place.

“Is that a yes?” Jensen asks, hands itching to grab Misha and hold him close. “God, please tell me that’s a yes.”

Misha laughs again and Jensen will never get tired of that sound.

“Yes,” he confirms. “It’s a yes.”

“I knew it,” Jensen says, affecting a cocky smirk and stepping a little closer. He didn’t know at all, to be honest, but that’s never stopped him from acting like he did.

“You think you’re cute,” Misha tells him, trying to sound stern. The way his eyes soften and the lines around his mouth smooth out though, they tell a different story. “But you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” Jensen counters.

“Yes,” Misha concedes, leaning in and tilting his head slightly upward. His words are soft and moist against Jensen’s lips and it’s like a direct line to his cock. “You are.”

“I’m gonna win you all over again,” Jensen says and he gives in and kisses Misha again, quick.

Misha smiles. “If I recall, I was the one who had to win you over the first time around.”

Jensen smiles back, lets his fingers trail slowly across Misha’s arm. “So, it’s my turn.”

***

Jensen can’t possibly beat that performance, but he doesn’t really have to.

He likes to tease Misha that he’s easy – mostly because he typically puts out for Jensen with very little encouragement – but the truth is, he’s not. He’s guarded, in a way that most people don’t understand because he’s so outwardly friendly. And he takes all of his relationships very seriously. His trust is a valuable thing and once that’s broken it takes more than a simple apology to gain it back.

It takes more than fancy dinners and fresh cut flowers and sentimental second first dates to gain it back.

So Jensen doesn’t have to break the bank on ridiculous presents or stay up all night writing cheesy love poetry. He doesn’t have to dress up like a girl _ever again_ and he doesn’t have to stand outside Misha’s window reciting Shakespeare or singing old _Journey_ songs.

He just has to be there.

Every day, he has to be there, so that Misha knows he’ll _always_ be there, that he never wants to be anywhere else, not ever again.

So, he calls Misha, every day. Misha usually answers and when he doesn’t he usually calls Jensen back and they talk. Sometimes just for a few minutes, sometimes half the night. Sometimes about what Misha’s cooking for supper or how Jensen’s laptop broke down again and sometimes they’ll play twenty questions or watch an old movie together over the phone, like they used to when they started dating nearly a decade ago.

They go out every weekend. Usually to see a movie or grab something to eat, but a couple of times Justin has a party and even though Justin’s parties aren’t Jensen’s favourite things ever, he doesn’t even think about saying no, when Misha asks him if he wants to go.

Misha always lets Jensen kiss him and Jensen always goes home alone and Misha always calls to say a short good night and Jensen always falls asleep smiling. Sure, Jensen’s working on a pretty mean case of blue balls, but it’s a small price to pay.

Things are good. Misha makes him smile all the time, makes him feel invincible, like it doesn’t really matter quite so much that he’s got a shitload of papers to grade or that he’s way behind on his reading for his thermal regulation class or that his mom is still trying to get him to ‘talk about it’ every time he calls her. 

Misha makes Jensen’s stomach flutter and his chest tighten, like he’s nervous, excited and everything is just fucking _perfect_ when he thinks about seeing him and he does the same for Misha. He knows this, because Misha told him once, two weeks ago at two in the morning, sitting in a coffee shop and high on donuts.

He’s falling in love all over again, even though he never fell out of it and it’s _good_.

He doesn’t push, doesn’t try to rush things. He doesn’t have to.

It’s on a Saturday evening, about two months into their courtship, when Jensen finally feels like he’s got Misha back. Really back, all the way. It’s after Jensen is propped up against a row of lockers, feet still stuck in a pair of roller skates and rubbing a hand over his freshly-bruised ass, that he feels like Misha’s ready. He’s already mentally unpacking his clothes back into his side of the closet because this is it. Misha _trusts_ him again.

“Want me to kiss that better for you?” Jensen hears from somewhere behind him and he jerks and spins around so hard his feet start to slide out from underneath him and he nearly falls down again.

It’s Jared, of course.

“Hey,” he says, and normally he’d be smiling, but he’s kind of freaking out because he doesn’t want Misha to read in anything into this. He never would have before, but now Jensen’s not so sure.

“Saw you wipe out, man,” Jared grins, gesturing to the rink. “Real smooth.”

“I still maintain I was pushed,” Jensen says, blushing. He steps out of the way, so that he’s no longer blocking Jared’s view of Misha.

“Would I do something like that?” Misha asks, looking much too innocent to be believed. To be fair, Jensen’s not _positive_ that Misha pushed him, but he’s pretty sure that somebody did.

“Oh,” Jared says smile fading slightly and turning a little less certain. “Hey, Misha. I didn’t…”

“Jared, hello,” Misha says, saving him some floundering. His smile is real, warm and he means it when he asks, “how are you?”

“Uh, good,” Jared answers, sparing a moment to shoot a confused look at Jensen. Which Jensen briefly shares. “I’m good. Can’t complain.” He sounds a lot more natural now, his voice is thick and rich and those damn dimples are back. It’s like a blueprint for making people like him, and the fucking kicker is, it’s not fake at all. 

Nobody says anything else for a few awkward seconds and to save them any more discomfort (and to make sure Misha doesn’t get the wrong idea) he takes Misha’s hand and leans a little closer to him.

“We were just gonna go grab something to eat…” Jensen starts, subtly coaxing Misha in the direction of the snack bar.

“Would you like to join us, Jared?” Misha interrupts, still smiling. Fucker really isn’t trying to make this easy on Jensen, but whatever. Jensen can take it. 

Jared opens his mouth and he looks at Jensen again, silently asking him what the hell he’s supposed to say to that. Jensen smiles a smile that’s more like a wince, which really doesn’t tell Jared much of anything, so he just shrugs his shoulders.

“Sure, yeah,” he answers. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Misha says, as they start to walk together, Jensen between them. “Thank Jensen. He’s buying.”

***

“That was extremely cool of you,” Jensen says, half an hour and twenty bucks later. Jared just took off to go find his friends, leaving Jensen and Misha to fight over the last of the onion rings. Jensen doesn’t fight very hard.

The conversation hadn’t been as uncomfortable as Jensen thought it would (turns out Jared and Misha actually get along pretty well, especially when they’re mostly making fun of Jensen), but Jensen’s still glad it’s over.

“Not really,” counters Misha. He considers the last onion ring in his hand – a good one; all thick and perfectly golden and crispy – and he uses his butter knife to cut it in half, before leaning across the table to pop one of the halves in Jensen’s mouth. “I don’t like him.”

“What? But…”

“Oh, it’s completely irrational,” Misha tells him, then eats his own half of the onion ring before licking his fingers clean. That’s… kind of distracting. Misha has nice fingers. And a nice tongue. And lips. And he can do all sorts of really nice things with those fingers, and tongue, and lips. And… it’s been way too long since Jensen last got laid.

“Huh?” Jensen asks, blinking and snapping his mouth shut when Misha clears his throat. “Sorry, what?”

Misha laughs at that and dries his fingers off on a napkin.

“I said it’s completely irrational. And I’m fairly certain it will go away, eventually. So in the mean time I can either do my best to get along with him, which shouldn’t be hard considering he seems like a genuinely great guy, or I could do something completely barbaric, like challenge him to a duel.”

Jensen snorts at that, shaking his head.

“Good choice.”

“Hm,” Misha agrees. “Especially since the prize is already mine.”

Jensen groans and rolls his eyes, but inwardly he’s pumping his fist in the air in victory because _finally_.

“Lame, dude,” Jensen says, even as he can feel his face tighten and stretch as he grins, so wide he knows he looks ridiculous.

Misha just leans closer, looks down at Jensen’s lips for a moment.

“They’ll be closing up here, soon,” Misha says. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yeah,” Jensen answers. The rink closes at midnight but Jensen’s not ready to call it a night, not yet. “Sure. Uh… We could still probably catch a late movie, if you want. Or half price day-olds at _Coffee Time_?”

“Actually, Jensen,” Misha says, and this time he’s so close that Jensen can practically feel the words vibrating against his lips. He shivers and a slight tickle creeps up the length of his spine. “It’s getting late. I was thinking it’s time we went home.”

“Yeah, okay,” Jensen says, a little disappointed but determined not to show it. “I guess I…” He blinks and sits up straighter, putting a little more space between them, because did Misha really just say what Jensen thinks he said? “Wait, what?”

Misha laughs full out at that and then reaches out to rest his fingers along the back of Jensen’s neck. He pulls him forward into a solid, grounding kiss.

“Let’s go home, Jensen,” he says. “You can stop by campus tomorrow and get your things. Okay?”

Okay? _Okay_? It’s so much more okay than just _okay_ that Jensen doesn’t even know where to start. So he doesn’t. He just pulls Misha close and kisses him again, longer this time, slower when he slots his lips over Misha’s.

“Marry me?” Jensen asks when they finally break apart, breathless and tingling and a little bit stupid. He’s about ten percent joking, ninety percent completely serious. He’d marry Misha in a heartbeat – he’s been asking him to for about five years now – but for reasons beyond Jensen’s understanding, Misha never answers him.

Tonight is not the night he breaks that pattern.

“You’re already having sex tonight,” Misha says. “Don’t push your luck.”

“You know,” Jensen says, as they finish changing into their street shoes and head out the door. “One of these days I’m going to ask and you’re actually going to answer me. You’re gonna say _yes_ , too.”

“One of these days,” Misha agrees, with an enigmatic grin as he slides into the passenger seat of their car.

Jensen smiles back and heads for home.

END


End file.
